Six more dancers are leaving the Australian National Ballet. “The Australian Ballet is approaching the end of the year with the resignation or retirement of 20 per cent of the dancers in its ranks.” – The Age (Melbourne)
Tag: 10.18.00
POP CRITIC WONDERS ABOUT THE HONESTY OF REVIEWS
The world of popular culture is filled with profanity. But you’ll never read any of that included in newspapers’ accounts of pop music events. Isn’t the absence of same leaving out a part of the story? “Do readers really think that the sight of an f- over their morning coffee will have them unwillingly rubbing shoulders with Satan? Will an s- send them spiraling downward into a sweeping, swirling eddy of moral despair?” – San Jose Mercury News
WHO’S CONTROLLING WHAT WE READ?
Publishing has gone to hell, says a senior publisher. And why? “Five major conglomerates control 80 percent of American book sales,” he says, speaking of Bertelsmann, the mammoth German firm that owns Random House; Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.; Time Warner; Disney; and Viacom/CBS. In 1999, the top 20 publishers accounted for 93 percent of sales.” – Washington Post
BRAVO, BOOKER JUDGES
“One of the complaints often levelled against Britain’s premier literary prize is that it functions as a kind of club, nominating a certain kind of ‘literary fiction’ chosen from a limited pool of potential ‘Booker’ writers. Deliberately or not, this millennial short list has turned its back on a number of established writers, any one of whom might, in another year, deserve a place on some other ideal Booker shortlist. – Daily Mail & Guardian (South Africa)
WHEN FLATTERY GETS YOU NOWHERE
A regularly outspoken critic of the Royal Opera House’s former management, Raymond Gubbay has applied to run the institution after Michael Kaiser’s departure. In his application Gubbay called the Opera House “the preserve of the rich, the influential and those concerned with corporate entertainment.” The Times (UK)
I CAN FIX THIS: Gubbay “calls for a higher status for the Executive Director which would put him or her above the Music Director and the Artistic Director of the Royal Ballet. He also wants more performances, longer production runs and cheaper seats.” – London Evening Standard
RACHMANINOFF IN PASADENA
A major new international piano competition is planned for Southern California. The competition, scheduled for March, 2002, invites pianists ages 18 to 32 to compete for cash prizes, as well as the chance to perform with the Moscow Radio Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra and the State Capella Choir of St. Petersburg. The competition is expected to cost $3 million. – Los Angeles Times
FAMILY FUGUE
JS Bach had 20 children, and it’s natural to ask how he managed to find time to fit composing in amongst his parenting duties? “For him, children were not an unwelcome distraction from other responsibilities. On the contrary, his role as a parent was a central part of his life and was intimately entwined in his aesthetic outlook. Indeed, understanding Bach’s attitude towards parenting can in turn help us understand his musical attitudes in general.” – The Idler
BACH – A RADICAL MOVE?
There’s been a sense of rising panic in Melbourne in the countdown to the 15th Melbourne Festival. The artistic director’s decision to turn much of the festival’s program to the music of J.S.Bach, played by many of the world’s leading exponents, is an “idiosyncratic, if not radical move.” – The Age (Melbourne)