As writers, musicians, and pundits around the world bemoan the lack of public appreciation for new music, five couples in Minnesota are doing something about it. For 13 years, each couple has contributed $2000 per year to a pool of money which is eventually used to commission a carefully selected composer to write a specific piece of music. The rights to the piece revert to the composer immediately following the first performance, but the club members continue to seek new performance opportunities for “their” composers. Needless to say, composers are thrilled with the club.
Tag: 11.21.03
Prejudice Against Pots (And Potters?)
Grayson Perry is the hottest British potter ever. But “what is it about Grayson Perry that makes critics rummage in their tool boxes for monkey wrenches and lump hammers? Partly, it is because he is a potter. What, say critics down their noses, are ceramics doing in an art gallery? People don’t seem to have a problem with Picasso’s ceramic art, but they do with Perry’s.”
Beer Flies At Smithsonian
The Smithsonian will not remove beer ads adorning a famous plane when it goes on display. “Twenty members of the House of Representatives had complained in a letter to the Smithsonian’s museum that the beer logos represented commercialization and alcohol advertising.”
Milwaukee Symphony – Deeper In The Red
Earlier this year the Milwaukee Symphony predicted it would have a $2.5 million deficit. Instead, the orchestra finished $874,000 in the red. “The gap closed because musicians gave back 21/2 weeks of work and pay, several office staff positions were eliminated, other staffers agreed to wage cuts and the symphony negotiated fee cuts with many guest artists. The symphony’s accumulated debt now stands at $5 million, $1.37 million of it run up in the last two seasons.”
Previously Unknown Van Gogh On Display
“A Dutch museum opens an exhibition this weekend of what it claims is a previously unknown painting by Vincent van Gogh, and says there may be more among a collection of 250 works once regarded as worthless.”
How Iraq’s National Symphony Got Invited To Perform In The US
“The 55 members of the Iraqi group will be joined by about 45 musicians from the National Symphony and they will perform as a single, joint orchestra. Iraqi conductor Mohammed Amin Ezzat and NSO conductor Leonard Slatkin will take turns leading the mixed group. Their Dec. 9 concert will include works by Beethoven and Bizet as well as two pieces of contemporary Iraqi music for a full symphony orchestra, augmented by six Kurdish folk instruments.”
How To Kill The Place Where Hip Lives (Get Popular)
In the 90s Hoston was the hot, hip area of London, the “playground” of the YBA artists. “But now there are whispers that Hoxton is on the way down. Popularity, they say, has killed personality. Overexposure has destroyed the sense of Hoxton as an exclusive club for the ultra- fashionable: on a Saturday night, the Hoxton-Shoreditch thoroughfare of Curtain Road has lost any sense of an alternative identity, and the Bacardi Breezer-drinking hordes are indistinguishable from those in the West End.”
Sellars: Artists Must Take The Long View
Director Peter Sellars is impressed with demonstrations against the war in Iraq, but under no illusions that American policy will soon change. “We have different timelines. I’m accepting that for the next few years the headlines belong to [US Defence Secretary] Donald Rumsfeld. Our job as artists is to work for the next twenty years. I’m under no illusion that anything happens overnight. The real work is long-term. I have just come from Glyndebourne, working on Idonomeo and Theodora. These are pieces by artists from two different generations, Mozart and Handel, who were putting forward ideas – the end of autocracy and so on – that became the American revolution. That’s what artists must do.”
New Leadership For Bolshoi Theatre?
There are rumors the Bolshoi Drama Theatre might get new leadership. It’s long overdue, as recent productions prove. “After Georgy Tovstonogov’s death in 1980, an adequate replacement was not found, and it was decided that the new artistic director would concentrate his efforts on preserving the legacy of the late legendary director. The most important thing was not to ruin the house that Tovstonogov built. Now, that house has become old, feeble and fragile. After being denied fresh blood and any new influence at all for so many years, the BDT troupe finds itself in an unappealing state of stagnation.”
Is Aussie Film Industry In Trouble?
It’s been a tough year for Australian films. But is the movie industry in crisis? “Yes, at this stage, it’s been nearly 30 years since the so-called ‘film renaissance’ of the mid-’70s, and we should be producing many more audience-friendly films and far fewer box-office dog whistles, arthouse indulgences and turkeys. Australian film needs to break out of its boutique mentality; its invasion of the multiplex is long overdue. But arrested development does not qualify as a crisis. Not in our book. Not yet.”