Currently chief conductor of the London’s Royal Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra, Dutoit has a longstanding relationship with the VFO, including conducting the group on its last tour of the U.S. in October 2007.
Tag: 10.14.08
Birmingham Named Britain’s Ugliest City
“More than a third of 1,111 people surveyed thought Birmingham had the ugliest buildings in the country.”
The Best Books That Never Existed
The Guardian‘s Books Blog considers works that exist only in the pages of other works: Bacon Death and Your Clothes Are Dead (in Brautigan’s The Abortion: A Historical Romance), the novels of T.S. Garp, the many books mentioned in Borges’s Ficciones, and, of course, the titular travel guide in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Simulatio Urbis (Sim City, Roman-Style)
“A team of archaeologists, scientists and software programmers has created a 3D virtual model of the city of Cologne as it was 2,000 years ago. Though not yet online, the software allows visitors to fly through the city in its Roman glory.”
Damien Hirst (Surprise!) Tops Art Review‘s Power 100
The super-seller is no. 1 on the British magazine’s list of the art world’s most powerful people for the second time; runners-up include dealer Larry Gagosian and MoMA’s Kathy Halbreich.
Andrew Lloyd Webber Bidding for Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization
“The opportunity comes as Mary Rodgers Guettel and Alice Hammerstein Mathias, the duo’s elderly daughters, are exploring future options for the business they operate through family trusts.”
Regulating Decorum on Philly’s ‘Museum Mile’
“Nowhere in Philadelphia do rich and poor commingle so awkwardly as on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway… Now, two powerful civic groups are pushing for regulations that will make the area a flash point in the debate over how to manage the city’s homeless population.”
This Day In Acoustical History
When McKim, Mead & White designed Boston’s Symphony Hall, which opened on Oct. 15, 1900, they “did something unprecedented: They hired Wallace Clement Sabine, a young assistant physics professor from nearby Harvard, to act as acoustical consultant. For the first time ever, scientifically proven acoustical principles were applied to concert-hall design.”
A Bad Situation Gets Worse For TV Networks
“The television networks are up against a perfect storm: Ratings stink; piracy is rampant, as viewers migrate to the web; and now, thanks to this little credit crisis, advertisers are expected to cut ad spending or cancel buys.” Meanwhile: “Network television is underperforming the GDP (gross domestic product) the most it has in nearly five decades.”
Seattle’s Ticket Window Closes
“Ticket Window, a local ticketing agency, and its sister company, half-price ticket vendor Ticket/Ticket, have gone out of business.”