The case most important to its major donor Eli Broad is economic. “We must show cultural tourists on the East Coast, in Europe and Asia that they could have a similar or better cultural experience here in Los Angeles.” Broad suggested that a $10 million annual advertising budget would have a payoff “of probably 5-10 times that much.”
Tag: 09.08.06
And This Makes Us Safer How, Exactly?
One soloist who has been feeling the effects of the UK baggage restrictions is London-based violinist Viktoria Mullova, who went so far as to smuggle her unprotected Stradivarius onto a Helsinki-bound flight in a shopping bag last month. This week, she’s due to play concerts in the US, and there’s a very real possibility that she will have to make the trip without her instrument.
The 9/11 Conspiracy Industry
It’s thriving, with thousands who have decided that official explanations of the events of 9/11 don’t add up. “Distrust percolates more strongly near Ground Zero. A Zogby International poll of New York City residents two years ago found 49.3 percent believed the government consciously failed to act.”
A Tax Law That Could Hurt Museums
New tax law in America may make art collectors less willing to donate to museums. “This may be a calculation remote from most people’s lives, but museum directors say they depend on this intricate system of financial incentives to stimulate people’s generosity and attract works that the museum could never afford to buy. If the balance between the advantages of donating versus selling shifts, wealthy individuals will be much less likely to give a valuable painting or sculpture away.”
Dance Up For Anything
New York’s Fall for Dance delivers a lot of dance for a tiny price. And it’s been a huge hit with younger audiences. “Whatever its trickle-down effects, the festival has created a rare commodity in New York dance: audience that’s game for anything. ‘If you pay $100, there’s an expectation — that you have the right to get a certain amount of something that you like. If you pay $10, it’s more, ‘Let’s see what we get’.”
25 Years Of The New Criterion
“Launched in 1982 by Hilton Kramer and the music critic Samuel Lipman, the magazine has outlasted T.S. Eliot’s Criterion, which ran for 17 years. For a quarter of a century, the New Criterion has helped its readers distinguish achievement from failure in painting, music, dance, literature, theater, and other arts. The magazine, whose circulation is 6,500, has taken a leading role in the culture wars, publishing articles whose titles are an intellectual call to arms.”
Denver Arts Icon, 94, Steps Aside
Donald Seawell “created the Denver Center for the Performing Arts in 1972. The 12-acre Denver Performing Arts Complex covering four square blocks is the largest performing-arts facility in the nation at one location.” Now he’s 94 and stepping down as chairman after 34 years. “Seawell’s transfer to ‘chairman emeritus’ marks what some are calling the most significant leadership shift at any Denver arts organization in the city’s history.”
The Official Coltrane
Jazz at Lincoln Center is throwing a John Coltrane party this season. “So let’s approach Jazz at Lincoln Center’s opening concerts of the new season, a series of shows based on the music of John Coltrane on the 80th anniversary of his birth, as beginner classes,” writes Ben Ratliff.
Gaddafi Opera Debuts (But Where’s The Music?)
London’s English National Opera debuted its opera about Muammar Gaddafi Thursday night. “But fans of conventional opera rich in arias and romantic duets faced in ‘Gaddafi: A Living Myth’ a bewildering mix of musical styles and critics complained it contained precious little rap and no opera.”
Reading And Educating
“This fall education is a particularly hot topic in publishing. New books raise a wealth of ticklish questions, beginning with the ones about wealthy kids. What got them into those Ivy League classrooms?”