Nashville’s imposing new Schermerhorn Symphony Center opened this weekend with a gala celebration that some observers called the biggest party the city had seen in a decade. The opening night concert, conducted by Leonard Slatkin, had a distinct Nashville flavor, with standard works by Barber, Mahler and Shostakovich sandwiching a new triple concerto by country/jazz/folk legends Bela Fleck and Edgar Meyer.
Tag: 09.10.06
Assessing Scotland’s New Funding Scheme
It’s been several months since control of Scotland’s national cultural organizations passed from the national arts council to the Scottish Executive. This made many in the arts quite uneasy: “No government is immune from politics, and politics and the arts make uneasy bedfellows.” Still, the new arrangement seems to be working well so far.
Is Orange County Overreaching?
Orange County, California’s recently expanded performing arts center has made the region a major player in the West Coast cultural scene, where once it was thought merely as an appendage of Los Angeles. But “a closer look at the [center’s] 2005-06 fiscal year, which ended June 30, reveals that it wasn’t spectacular. In fact, all key measurements – attendance, ticket sales, income, expenses and number of events – were down from previous years.”
A District Under Siege By Its Own Leaders
In an age of terror fears, Washington, D.C. has become a virtual fortress, and Blair Kamen says that “in this struggle between armor and aesthetics, armor is invariably emerging the victor, marring public buildings and public spaces that symbolize the ideals of democracy and help hold together a diverse, often-fractious society.”
No Risk, No Reward
Minneapolis/St. Paul is the only metropolitan area in the US to support two major orchestras – the Minnesota Orchestra and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra – and over the years, the Twin Cities have earned a reputation for adventurous audiences and daring programming. But Michael Anthony says that reputation is increasingly at odds with reality, as both orchestras stack their seasons with Beethoven, Brahms, and little else, “a reflection of economics, of orchestra boards and marketing departments running scared, hoping to avoid deficits and sustain their graying audience by programming the same old works they think the audience wants to hear.”
Another Fight Over Nazi-Looted Art
A case in US courts is a battle over art looted by Nazis. “The case pits an ailing, elderly German baroness in Providence against a wealthy Canadian foundation created to benefit three universities in Canada and Israel. And it involves a Jewish lawyer in Boston who has helped Jewish families recover art lost during the Holocaust, but who now represents the baroness in a dispute over whether she possesses art stolen by her Nazi stepfather — and whether she broke the law by taking the painting to Germany in search of an overseas court sympathetic to her position.”
Is Pacific Symphony Ready For The Big Leagues?
Orange County, California’s Pacific Symphony is moving into an ambitious new concert hall desigtned for it. “The new hall puts the Pacific Symphony on equal footing with the great orchestras of the world. We are definitely in the big leagues now.”
WTC – Going Up?
There have been so many designs for the site of the World Trade Center. The latest were unveiled last week. “A first impression is that, while none is dazzling, the three together would restore a much-needed jolt of verticality to the sheared-off lower Manhattan skyline.”
The Death Of Skyscrapers? (Not Hardly)
“The global resurgence is not just a real estate phenomenon. It is a creative revival, representing at its best a rethinking of the tall building that goes well beyond the cosmetic gesturesapplied like so much rouge to the decoration-slathered postmodern towers of the 1980s. But something has changed, something fundamental: In many skyscrapers around the world, fear has joined form, function and finance as an integral part of the skyscraper equation.”