It isn’t every network news anchor who could inspire a collection of America’s finest musicians to take to the stage of Carnegie Hall in celebration of his memory, but as has been abudantly clear since his death from lung cancer, Peter Jennings wasn’t just any anchor. A memorial to the Canadian-born journalist held at the famous venue yesterday drew 2,000 spectators. “Reflecting Jennings’ eclectic and wide-ranging taste, performers included cellist Yo-Yo Ma, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, violinist Natalie MacMaster, and the Gates of Praise choir.”
Tag: 09.21.05
New Montreal FilmFest Sputtering
“The New Montreal FilmFest was touted as a glitzy new film showcase designed to make everyone forget the past few years of controversy that have dogged the rival World Film Festival. But half-way through the inaugural edition of the city’s newest film fest, there are far more glitches than glitz. The event, backed by $2 million in government funding, just lost its highest-profile film, many movies are screening to near-empty theatres, and the fest’s star program director is telling anyone who’ll listen how much he dislikes L’Equipe Spectra, the Montreal company running the festival. In short, it’s hard to imagine how things could be going any worse at the festival.”
The Phenomenon That Was Thomas Krens
So the legendary Thomas Krens is stepping aside at the Guggenheim. “This departure is a genuine art world event, because of Mr. Krens’s influence and buccaneering style. He has done more to redefine museum practice than anyone since Thomas Hoving was director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the 1960s and 1970s. Still, as with Mr. Hoving, the surprise isn’t that his departure took place, but that it didn’t happen sooner.”
Will New Orleans Still Look Like New Orleans?
There will be many painful decisions ahead for those who must find a way to rebuild New Orleans, and none may be more taxing than deciding what aspects of the city’s famed architecture can be preserved, and which must get the wrecking ball. “New Orleans is a city where the grand and the debauched are often separated by feet rather than miles, and much of its treasured visual narrative remains intact. But the wind has torn away chunks of facades and the insides of many homes have been corrupted beyond description… a discussion about the virtues of the city’s vernacular architecture – shotgun shacks, Creole cottages – would seem to be a luxury now. Still, local preservationists believe that unless the bulldozers roaming New Orleans are used with care, the city that officials are trying to save will be lost.”
Venice Gets The Berendt Treatment
John Berendt, the popular and controversial author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, has a new book out focusing on the fire that destroyed Venice’s Fenice Opera House in 1996, and like his earlier blockbuster, it purports to be a work of nonfiction that reads like a novel. Berendt admitted in an author’s note that some of the events of Midnight were made up or reordered for “storytelling effect,” an admission which may have cost him the Pulitzer Prize. And, while he insists that he hasn’t done the same with the new book, there’s little question that Berendt’s work, while undeniably engaging to read, treads that uncomfortable line between reportorial fact and factually inspired fiction.
Dennison To Run Guggnheim
New York’s Guggenheim Museum has found its next director within its own ranks: Lisa Dennison, a 27-year veteran of the Guggenheim organization, will take over running the New York museum on October 1, succeeding Thomas Krens. Dennison will also continue in her current capacity as chief curator for all the various Guggenheim museums spread across the world.
Preservation Hall Band Reunites
Musicians of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band have reunited in New York. “Preservation Hall itself dates back to a private residence built in 1750, when New Orleans was still a French colony. Like most of the French Quarter, the building suffered only minimal damage from Katrina, its stone walls and thick wooden shutters holding firm against yet another hurricane. The band last performed at Preservation Hall on Aug. 27, a Saturday night, one day before Katrina hit. They played for about 20 people, one of the smallest crowds since the hall was founded by Jaffe’s parents in 1961 in a former art gallery. The performance ended early so the musicians could get out of town.”
Ailing Art Investment Funds
Art investment funds are struggling. “The fact is that, while a host of funds are currently jostling to find investors, few are succeeding. Most have scaled back their initial optimistic targets, and only one is actually up and running. It is a struggle to make the concept fit with financial institutions.”
Spano, Runnicles Earn ASO Extensions
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra has extended the contracts of music director Robert Spano and principal guest conductor Donald Runnicles through the 2008-09 season. The move to lock up a popular music director for an additional two years will likely be seen as a signal to larger U.S. orchestras with music director vacancies that the 44-year-old Spano, a rising star among American conductors, is not available to them in the near term.
Concert Canceled Due To Approaching Disaster
With Hurricane Rita churning across the Gulf of Mexico toward the Texas Coast, the Houston Symphony Orchestra has canceled all of its scheduled concerts for the upcoming weekend. Houston sits approximately 50 miles inland from where Rita, now a Category 5 storm, is expected to make landfall, but officials are warning of the possibility of severe flooding in the city nonetheless. The orchestra’s concert hall and library were badly damaged by storm-induced flooding in 2001.