So, why not Orchestra Hero? What if I could “play” the horn solo in “Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks” on a “controller horn” or the bassoon solo at the opening of “The Rite of Spring” on a “controller bassoon”?
Tag: 10.30.09
The Battle For Asia’s Top Culture City
“Longtime rivals in trade and finance, Hong Kong and Singapore are vying to become Asia’s regional arts hub, part of a strategy to be crowned Asia’s top city.”
Loving The Variation In Live Theatre
“Great performances rarely disappear. The technical elements of a show don’t vary much (disasters notwithstanding). Poor casting choices — and I could list several on the boards currently in Chicago — remain poor casting choices. But the longer I do this job, the more I realize the importance of these nightly variances.”
Record Number Of Students In US Colleges This Fall
“The share of 18- to 24-year-olds attending college in the United States hit an all-time high in October 2008, driven by a recession-era surge in enrollments at community colleges, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly released data from the U.S. Census Bureau.”
Britney Spears Releases Tease On Twitter
“With 3.6 million followers, Spears is significantly out in front of any other artist on Twitter, according to data from Big Champagne. For those keeping track of figures that largely can’t yet be monetized, John Mayer is a distant second, with about 2.5 million followers.”
Recession Consequence – A New Improved Broadway?
“Around 65% of the tickets for Broadway shows are bought by tourists from outside New York’s metropolitan area. A reliable choice for a family on the town has long been a splashy musical with some hearty laughs. But the recession is bringing about changes, some of which may be for the better.”
Change Of Publisher – Do We Care?
“Why should the fact that a novelist changes the merchandiser of his books be of more headline interest than, say, Martin Amis changing his dentist? Who cares? When the book trade was a cottage industry we did; it’s questionable if we do any more.”
Landscape Artist Lawrence Halprin, 93
“As postwar America sprouted suburban malls, urban parks, corporate compounds and federal urban renewal projects, Mr. Halprin helped forge a new, sharper style of landscape architecture, often as dependent on concrete as on vegetation. Places he shaped include Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco; Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis; a sequence of urban spaces with dazzling fountains in Portland, Ore.; a park atop a freeway in Seattle; and large plazas in Los Angeles.”
Not Okay? University Cuts Academics, Subsidizes Athletics
“To the consternation of some faculty members at Berkeley, the university’s sports program is running multimillion-dollar deficits — on top of the annual institutional subsidies — that are requiring the university to make short-term loans to the sports program.”
One Giant Jukebox Wherever
“There are plenty of stores out there – Spotify alone has 6 million tracks – many people have gigabytes of music on their hard drives, lesser-known bands publish on MySpace, and music blogs post rarities. Playdar provides a way to pull all those sources together into one giant jukebox.”