“The 34-year-old has agreed to take up the post of music director at the Boston Symphony Orchestra, but will remain with the CBSO until 2015. The Latvian conductor took up the role in 2008, following in the footsteps of Louis Fremaux and Sir Simon Rattle.”
Tag: 10.02.13
Have American Orchestras Learned To Innovate?
“The good news: Classical music participation rates have held steady for the last five years, stopping a steady decline through 2008. Orchestras have been keeping their feet to the pedals as they innovate at unprecedented rates to develop audiences.”
Chicago Is A Great Theatre Town. What It Needs Is Producers
“We felt like if we could prove that taking a show from a nonprofit, just like they do in New York, capitalizing it, enhancing it, bringing it to a larger space–if we could prove that you can do that and make money, maybe we could start that kind of community here in Chicago. And since nobody was doing it, it felt like a really good opportunity.”
How The Stagehands Union Is Bleeding New York Arts Organizations Like Carnegie Hall
“For over a century, Local One has been collective-bargaining the life out of New York’s performing arts. Just how much does this union of carpenters, electricians and prop masters bleed from city arts organizations? Carnegie Hall’s tax returns for its 2010 season, its most recent publicly available records, suggest an answer.”
The Minnesota Orchestra Must Die (And Be Reborn)
Lawrence Perelman: “Here’s how the musicians make history: Follow Maestro Vänskä’s lead and resign from the Minnesota Orchestral Association. Immediately announce the creation of the Minnesota Symphony, a self-governing orchestra modeled on the Vienna Philharmonic.”
U.S. Orchestra Players Are Overpaid And Greedy, Says The Telegraph
Ivan Hewett: “These gilded bands exist in some strange never-never land, where questions of pay are discussed in complete isolation from the wider world. … These salaries are at eye-watering levels which would make any British orchestral player weep with envy.”
Today’s Management-Labor Crisis Brought To You By San Francisco Ballet
“The San Francisco Ballet said that it had made ’emergency contingency plans’ that could result in the cancellation of a planned New York tour, including performances at Lincoln Center, if the union representing its dancers does not meet a deadline for accepting what the ballet called its ‘last, best and final offer’.”
How The Normal Heart Has Changed Over Three Decades
Simon Levy, director of a new production at L.A.’s Fountain Theatre: “In the mid-’80s, it was completely agitprop. It was all about anger, about the city’s lack of response, the government’s lack of response. It was all about getting our voices heard. It’s been 30 years; people now look at the play and go, ‘Oh my God, this is a really good play’.”
Why It’s Worth It To Apologize Even If It’s Not Your Fault
“Newly published research suggests that [apologies] perform the important function of building trust. In our minds, anyone who takes note of our misfortune, and expresses dismay over it, is impressively empathetic and thus worthy of our confidence.”
Annie Baker, Rajiv Joseph Win $50K Playwriting Award
Baker, author of 2010 Obie and Drama Desk winner Circle Mirror Transformation, and Joseph, who wrote 2010 Pulitzer finalist Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, will receive Steinberg Playwright Awards (“Mimis”), in New York on Nov. 18.