“The strains of Mozart, Bach and Beethoven played in restaurants makes diners feel more affluent and encourages them to spend, according to research released by the University of Leicester in central England on Tuesday.”
Tag: 10.07.03
Lebrecht: Diversity Is A Red Herring
In the last several years, the language of diversity has begun to creep into the lily-white world of symphony orchestras, and it’s a big mistake, says Norman Lebrecht. “Diversity, or the policy that speaks its name, is a means of diverting orchestras from what they ought to be doing, making music, to what the Government ought to be doing, creating social harmony… It amounts to a mirror image of Hitlerite policy which entailed the removal of non-aryan races from German music, even though this would relegate the art to the margins of civilisation.”
Indian Cinemas Shutting Down
More than 1000 movie theatres in western India are threatening to close later this month in a dispute over taxes…
SF Conservatory’s New Home
The San Francisco Conservatory is entering a new era with a new building. “The new building, designed by the San Francisco architectural firm Simon Martin-Vegue Winkelstein Moris with the involvement of acoustician Lawrence Kirkegaard, will mark a huge expansion for the Conservatory. The plans call for a building nearly twice the size of the existing facility, with no fewer than three performance spaces and a wealth of new classrooms, practice rooms and teaching studios. And all at a cost of only $80 million.”
Turners Rescued By Newspaper Reader
A fan of JMW Turner gives £13,000 to the Victoria & Albert Museum to repair two of the artist’s paintings after reading in the paper that they were disintegrating.
Philly Opera – Blasting Out The Half-Price Tickets
The Opera Company of Philadelphia finds its season subscriptions on the decline. So it’s trying something new – four days before a performance, the company releases remaining tickets at half-price. “The availability of half-price seats is made known through periodic e-mail ‘blasts’ much in the fashion of last-minute airline deals. The question remains whether opera fans are the type who will make last-minute plans. Last week’s Il Trovatore opening sold 100 half-price tickets on 24-hour notice.”
The (Bad) Language Of TV
“Bad” language is on the increase on American broadcast networks. “It’s not hard to understand why these increases have occurred on the networks during prime time. First, there is the competition from cable. Popular programs such as ‘The Sopranos’ and ‘Sex and the City’ use vulgar and explicit language that makes network shows seem prim by comparison. Then there is pressure on entertainment programs to keep up with their own network news divisions.”
Artist Sues Company To Keep Work Intact
In 2000, artist David Phillips created his biggest work – a park installation for a big insurance company in Boston. Two years later, the company wanted to add some trees and sidewalks, but Phillips protested that the plan would change his work. Now the artist and the company are in court. Phillips wants to prevent the company from changing anything; the company wants to remove the work altogether…
New Word Order
Ten thousand new words made it into the new Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Editors are constantly monitoring language for new words to include. “If ‘cowboy up’ or other promising newcomers – at the moment, ‘blog’ and ‘senior moment’ are coming up fast on the outside – appear in a wide range of published sources over a sustained period of time, they could land a spot in the next edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary a decade or so from now. If not, they will meet the fate of such former up-and-comers as “vidiocy” and “cable-ready,” which now sit forlornly atop the citation files in brown cardboard boxes marked “rejected,” or old standbys like “long play,” which was dropped from the dictionary because CDs have supplanted long-playing records.”
Dario Fo Vs. Those In Power
At 77, Italian playwright/director Dario Fo is still rabble rousing. He’s in Genoa restaging Rossini’s opera, Il Viaggio a Reims: “They discovered I had re-written some of Rossini’s text, a story about Charles X, the King of France immediately after the French revolution. He threw out the Government, called for new elections, limited the number of voters, made laws for his own benefit. Yes! Many understood him to be similar to (the Italian Prime Minister) Berlusconi! So the politicians said we could not do this opera in Genoa. It was a big struggle. In the end, the city council said to the provincial governors, ‘Sorry, the program is set, tickets have been sold, we cannot stop the production’.”