Madonna’s new children’s book launched over the weekend – a product of hype already makes it a best-seller. “The English Roses has already found its way into publishing history as the widest, simultaneous multi-language release, with a target of more than 100 countries in 30 languages. The US print run alone is 400,000. The massive hype of Madonna’s simple fable perplexed the publishing world yesterday as she hosted an elaborate Kensington tea-party launch without a single copy of the book.”
Tag: 09.15.03
Royal Conservatory Branches Out Beyond Classical
Canada’s Royal Conservatory of Music has long set the standards for music instruction, helping educate generatations of young classical musicians. Now the RCM is widening its focus, offering world music as part of its curriculum. “The Conservatory is supposed to be the institution of Canadian national music, and we’ve caught up to the reality that there are huge numbers of people living in this country who were not raised in the Western classical-music tradition. We have to reflect the diversity.”
Colonial Willimaburg Lays Off Staff, Cuts Programs
Colonial Williamsburg, the “museum” that tries to recreate American colonial times, is suffering. “With declining attendance and a $35 million budget deficit, the nation’s largest living history museum is laying off nearly 400 of its 3,500 employees and cutting programs. Officials at the private, nonprofit foundation that operates Colonial Williamsburg blame the weak economy, lingering fears of terrorism since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, less focus on Colonial history in schools and rainy weather this year. And they note that other such ‘heritage’ sites also have falling or flat attendance.”
Berlin’s Louvre Plan
“Germany now is in the process of transforming the five neoclassical museums that are clustered on an island in the Spree River in Berlin into a cultural center to rival Paris’ Louvre and London’s British Museum. The complex eventually will unite collections of Greek and Roman antiquities, Egyptian artifacts, 19th century paintings, Byzantine art and Near Eastern antiquities long scattered by last century’s wars and political divisions. While construction has been underway for five years, Berlin’s financial woes have discouraged anyone from predicting completion.”
Iraqi Artists Get Back To Work
Iraq’s artists are feeling energized. “In the theaters, at least, young actors have embraced a measure of new freedom. The dozens of young actors and directors at the National Theater scrambling to ready plays for a festival next month have seized with enthusiasm an artistic freedom unknown for 25 years in Iraq. Their palpable energy is echoed elsewhere in the fine arts, where a cadre of younger Iraqi painters and sculptors have emerged from the shadows of a generation of state-funded artists who lived comfortably under the old regime – so long as they hewed to a narrow and apolitical path. For the artists discovering a new space in post-Hussein Iraq, liberation from a totalitarian government has wrought a cultural revolution.”
Tracking Down Iraq Art
About 3,400 artifacts stolen from the Iraq National Museum have been recovered. But about 10,000 are still missing. “The majority of the work remaining, that of tracking down the missing pieces, will likely take years. It will require the cooperative efforts of all nations. Already 750 stolen objects have been recovered in Great Britain, Italy, Jordan and the United States.”
WTC – Rebuilding By Culture?
Cultural groups are vying to relocate to downtown New York at the site of the World Trade Center. “Why are established uptown entities like New York City Opera and the 92nd Street Y now willing to consider a downtown location? Why are prominent theater people urging that a national theater be built there? The answer can be found in part in Bilbao and Barcelona, Spain, and Manchester, England, as well as in Los Angeles and Detroit. By giving new urgency to notions of transformation, the destruction that took place on Sept. 11, 2001, has brought home to downtown Manhattan the phenomenon of urban renewal through culture.”
You Get What You Pay For
Australians love to complain about the low quality of their nation’s movie industry. But screenwriter Steve Kearney says that if Australia wants better films, it needs to learn to pay the people who make them a living wage. “If we think we aren’t competing in the world market, then that’s the crappy films we are going to make. Low-budget, with minimally developed scripts about battlers who live in dingy houses. These stories emerge because that’s where writers come from. No smart person would become a screenwriter on purpose because you don’t get paid… But at least I’m not bitter. Hold on, yes I am. Hey, that’s why I write.”
The Three-Dimensional Comeback
Sculpture, it seems, is popular again, at least in Australia, and a new wave of artists working in three dimensions is garnering much attention from serious collectors. “The new breed of sculptors are decidedly challenging. Rendered death heads, dystopian buildings, a jury of chimpanzees and the Twelve Apostles constructed of chicken bones are among the pleasures to be encountered. And corporate and private money is getting behind it all.”
Why Doesn’t Australia Like Touring Orchestras?
Australia is a huge country with multiple cosmopolitan cities boasting thriving arts and music scenes. So why do so many touring orchestras find themselves playing to half-empty houses in Melbourne, Brisbane, and other Aussie cities? Some say that high ticket prices are to blame, while other “observers point out that the quality of some of the touring orchestras has not been absolutely first-class at a time when the Melbourne and Sydney symphonies are playing in top form, and that marketing for the touring groups was patchy.” Regardless of the cause, the slumping sales will probably mean that fewer touring orchestras will be stopping off Down Under.