“The $275-million Getty Villa project stands as Machado and Silvetti’s most significant design, centering on the 64-acre property just above Pacific Coast Highway where oil billionaire J. Paul Getty built a loose replica of a Roman country house. The mock villa by the architecture firm Langdon & Wilson was dismissed by some critics as a gaudy concoction when it opened to the public in 1974. ‘This folly of Getty, how do you take that building? We could have taken it with irony; we could have taken it with aggression. A lot of architect friends of ours recommended both. We took it very seriously, and I think we made it a better building’.”
Tag: 11.06.05
A Literary Superstar, Primed For A Fall
“With his pinched face and shambling gait, he is, to say the least, an incongruous figure; he looks more like a local wino than a world-famous man of letters. But [Michel] Houellebecq, 47, is the nearest thing to a literary superstar France has produced in recent years. His books have been translated into 36 languages and recent film deals have made him a multi-millionaire… [But in France,] he is often depicted as a calculating and manipulative operator who courts controversy to boost sales. This is also the argument of two recent biographies of Houellebecq.”
Minnesota’s Orchestra Of Conductors
This season three players in the Minnesota Orchestra are sharing assistant-conducting duties. “It’s tough because you’re up there for one week, then you’re right back where you were among your colleagues. So I think you just have to keep your eye on the prize, which is getting the program done.”
Should Art “Belong” To Its Home City?
There has been much discussion lately about the trend of museums selling off their art to balance the budget. But museums aren’t the only ones divesting themselves of great works: Alan Artner points out that private collectors do it all the time, and the effect on a city’s artistic reputation can be drastically changed by such actions. “In the past it was thought that artworks collected in a city should stay in the city, for in a sense, they belonged to it. People rich enough to have significant collections made their money in particular cities and leaving art to them was a way of giving something back.” But beginning in the 1980s, when art really became a financial investment as well as an aesthetic one, this view began to change.
Vanity Amid The Calligraphy
Illuminated manuscripts – those ornately decorated pages of calligraphic words that are meant more to be admired than read – were more than just a way to honor profound texts with high art. In fact, “[they] functioned a little the way today’s society pages do: they advertised the status of movers and shakers while at the same time they made them seem noble and generous. The manuscripts followed a basic formula: the more dazzling the word and image, the more prominent the church patron. Not content to be anonymous donors, people who commissioned such manuscripts even had their own likenesses incorporated into scenes along with their coats of arms.”
Rockettes High-Step Into Pittsburgh
Add Pittsburgh to the list of cities welcoming the Rockettes to town for the holidays. And as usual, the arrival of the touring Radio City show is being greeted by both enthusiasm and trepidation. On the plus side, the show could pump as much as $25 million a year into Pittsburgh’s hospitality industry. But for local arts groups, the Rockettes represent a serious threat to their own holiday-themed programs, and thus to their overall bottom lines.
Back To The Future In Birmingham?
Conductor Paul Polivnick had a good run as music director of the Alabama Symphony in the late 1980s, and even appeared to be making a stab at raising the orchestra from a little-known regional band to a big-budget ensemble that could have broken into the second tier of American orchestras. But when the ASO went bankrupt in 1993, the dream of bigger things for Birmingham’s symphony died, and Polivnick moved on. Now, with the ASO back in business (it reincorporated in 1997) and in need of a new music director, Polivnick is back in town to guest conduct his old musicians, and there is much speculation that he and the orchestra would like very much to pick up where they left off more than a decade ago.
Are Orchestras Losing The PR Game? Are They Even Playing?
The Oregon Symphony is facing a serious ticket sales slump, as audiences who packed the hall for the first two seasons following music director Carlos Kalmar’s arrival have deserted the orchestra in droves this fall. “Kalmar’s agenda — his choice of music — isn’t resonating with ticket buyers. It’s quirky, bordering on — how shall we say — bizarre.” But the orchestra’s problems may run deeper than programming choices. “Classical musicians aren’t good at rousing the electorate. They don’t know how to create buzz. They either think buzz is beneath them or they believe people don’t care enough about them to justify buzz. And yet, in this digital age, it takes a rapid-response public-relations blitz to get anything done.”
New Deal In Fort Worth
The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra has finalized a new 5-year contract with its musicians which calls for a 14% raise over the life of the deal and makes changes to certain working conditions. There had been speculation that the musicians might refuse to ratify the contract, which was offered with only the faintest endorsement by the musicians’ negotiating team. But when the votes were counted, the orchestra, which has been performing under an extension of its previous contract since August, could breath a sigh of relief.
Zeroing In On Piracy In Malaysia
“Malaysia’s government has been accused of failing to act on evidence that licensed CD factories are producing pirated music, films and software. The country’s recording industry says pirated discs from 12 of the 44 factories licensed by the government have been exported abroad. The suspect plants continue to operate despite complaints while illegal plants have been shut down, the industry says. Malaysia is thought to be the world’s largest exporter of pirated discs.”