Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra music director Manfred Honeck, “whose initial three-year contract began in fall of 2008, will now remain in his post until at least 2015-16. … The extension is unusual for its length and for how early it came in the conductor’s tenure.”
Tag: 09.10.09
Why Lang Lang Is A Musician For Our Times
“Showmen in different eras touch different chords for different generations. This is the age of instant messaging, sound bites, of atomized culture, with information packaged for our convenience in morsels, and Mr. Lang is embraced for more than his winning smile and playing very, very fast.”
NYC Chops 200 Feet Off Jean Nouvel’s Midtown Tower
“[T]he building would have been as tall as the Empire State Building minus its antenna, a fact that probably made planners tremble. … Still, the notion of treating the Midtown skyline as a museum piece is more disturbing. The desire of each new generation of architects and builders to leave its mark on the city … is essential to making New York what it is.”
Cleaned Up, Dubious Met Canvas Is Declared A Velazquez
“Experts had reason to doubt [its] authorship: Decades of varnish had discolored the canvas so much that its palette looked far darker than that of other paintings by Velazquez.” But the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s recent cleaning of “Portrait of a Man” revealed under “yellowed varnish and poor retouching … all the marks of Velazquez’s hand.”
New Design For Atlantic Yards Arena Is Better Compromise
Shop Architects’ revision of the Atlantic Yards arena is “somewhat more promising” than the first successor to Frank Gehry’s design. “Some of Mr. Gehry’s original ideas … have been restored,” and the structure has “an appealing rust-colored steel skin,” yet “it still falls short of the high architectural standards set by the design the city was originally promised.”
Exhibit Of Iranian Street Art Hampered By Political Unrest
Since Iran’s June presidential election, the curator of a gallery show in downtown L.A. “has had trouble communicating with the five male artists, securing basic biographical information about each of them and, in some cases, even obtaining their artwork.” On Facebook, “he hesitated to link … to the artists’ personal pages out of concern for their safety.”
School District, ACLU Settle Lawsuit Sparked By Rent
“An Orange County school district where varsity athletes threatened to rape and kill the lead actress in a student production of the musical ‘Rent’ has agreed to provide harassment and discrimination prevention training to Corona del Mar High School students, teachers and administrators and other district officials, according to a legal settlement….”
Two Very Different Arts High Schools Debut In L.A.
“One occupies $232 million worth of serious architecture on a promontory overlooking downtown Los Angeles. The other rents cramped space in a South L.A. church. … [I]t may be too early to say which of the two has the most potential to nurture the next generation of artists and performers.”
2009 Kennedy Center Honors Announced
This year’s recipients range from the sublime to the (purposely) ridiculous and back again: actor Robert De Niro, rocker Bruce Springsteen, jazzman Dave Brubeck, writer-director Mel Brooks and mezzo/soprano Grace Bumbry.
The Importance Of Being A Repetiteur
“The main trick is to get people to embrace the fact that, without this job, you couldn’t put on an opera because there’s no way to rehearse or for anyone to know what to do. … The maestro, the singer, the language coach, they all work together, but they can’t actually do what they need to do without a repetiteur.”