The Canada Council selects a crop of young musicians to whom it will lend valuable musical instruments, including a couple of Strads. – CBC
Tag: 09.17.00
THE STAR ORCHESTRA ADMINISTRATOR
The New York Philharmonic lost out on its bid to hire Riccardo Muti as its next music director. But Zarin Mehta, the orchestra’s new top executive has some important orchestra-building of his own he’d like to accomplish. – New York Times
LESSONS OF A LIFETIME
Isaac Stern is 80 and looking to teach. “What I can do best and what I think is most worthwhile is teaching the players how to think. I teach them how to listen to themselves and be honest, so they can become independent and go as far as their talent can take them, which is usually farther than they’ve gone at the time that they come to me. The main direction is teaching them not how you play, but why. Why do you want to be a musician?” – Los Angeles Times
A FRANCE-LOVES-JERRY-LEWIS THING?
Europeans love French choreographer Maurice Béjart’s work. Not the British or Americans though. “Critics in Britain and America say he’s a poseur who trashes the values of classical music and dance for the sake of cheap theatrical thrills.” – The Independent (UK)
THE OTHER ROYAL
“Birmingham is England’s second city, and the company is its second Royal Ballet, but David Bintley plays that position to advantage. ‘I like being part of a company which — how should I put this? — which is never thought of as being the best, because we are not the ‘real’ Royal Ballet at home in Covent Garden. So we have the fun of coming from behind’.” – The New York Times
CRY FOR HELP
- The Barnes Collection is in trouble again. The museum has 2000 works of art valued at $6 billion. But it’s broke, and museum officials have declared an emergency. “People don’t believe it when I say we don’t have any more money. They ask about the [$10 million] endowment and I have to tell them it’s gone.” – New York Times
AN EYE FOR CLUTTER
Francis Bacon’s studio will be reconstructed exactly the way he left it and moved to Dublin to be put on display. “The curators will re-create the studio down to the precise positions where Bacon left an old newspaper or dropped a gob of paint. Most of the walls are original, with some inscrutable handwritten notes Bacon sent to himself as reminders of how to organise his compositions.” – The Sunday Times (UK)
REINVENTING ANDREW
Andrew Lloyd Webber is back to writing musicals after a long break. But this time he’s got a new partner and some new perspective. “I was bored with musicals. Working with Ben Elton has completely made me rethink where I was coming from musically. And this is an original musical. Everything I have ever written before has been based on something else, like a book or a film.” – The Sunday Times (UK)
THE REAL IRELAND
For much of the 20th Century Irish writers fastened on to the idea that the “true” Ireland was to be found in the countryside. But that idea is a cliche, and a stale one even if it once was true. Now the idea has been updated, and the new theatre is reflecting the changes. – The Sunday Times (UK)