Random House has announced that Truman Capote’s long-lost first novel will be published next month. The manuscript for Summer Crossing, which Capote wrote beginning in 1943, was found in 2004 in a box of the author’s papers put up for auction. “Set in New York just after World War II, Summer Crossing is the story of a young lighthearted socialite, Grady McNeil, whose parents leave her alone in their Manhattan penthouse for the summer while they travel to France to check on their war-torn villa.”
Tag: 09.30.05
The Tate Scramble
Five years after its opening, London’s Tate Modern museum is rehanging its entire collection, changing the order in which patrons will view the works and replacing groupings organized by subject matter with a system of categories such as cubism, minimalism, and surrealism. “When the new look is unveiled in May 2006 about 40% of the works will not have been seen at the gallery before.”
Spurned Conductor Rides Again
“The conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner, who was dumped by a major record label after a long and distinguished career, has had the last laugh after his self-released album of Bach cantatas was named record of the year. Sir John, a world expert on the music of J S Bach, took the top honours at the Classic FM Gramophone Awards in London yesterday, one of the most prestigious dates in the classical music calendar. He took the decision to release the music himself after the label Deutsche Grammophon pulled the plug on him in 2000 after nearly 20 years, just as he was about to embark on a tour of Europe performing all of Bach’s 200 cantatas.”
Playing The Finale, And Hoping For One More Reprise
Conductors of international stature regularly flit from job to job, leaving little mark on any one city in which they might alight for a week or two. But for conductors of smaller ensembles who make their careers with a single ensemble in a single town, the roots put down can run deep. So what happens when one of those ensembles dies for lack of money? Enter Ruben Vartanyan, the 69-year-old music director of the newly bankrupt Arlington Symphony in suburban Washington, D.C. “There is a move afoot to resurrect the symphony in a more modest form… But the odds are long. Funding is scarce. And the work to rebuild could be enormous. The old conductor, though, is available.”