While other orchestras around North America post bad financial news, the Toronto Symphony has some good to report. Last year, the Toronto Symphony declared itself “on the precipice of complete collapse” after posting a $7 million deficit and seeing its subscription sales drop alarmingly. The orchestra’s then-executive director quit. This year’s been another story – the orchestra has reduced its deficit to $5 million and fundraising for the season was up 50 percent.
Tag: 11.23.02
Adrift On A Sea Of Styles
It used to be that music followed some sort of stylistic order of the day. Listeners might not agree with it, but at least there was some sort of guiding aesthetic at work. Today, there’s no sense of direction. “A decade of hard listening has produced little evidence of a shared culture, let alone a common trajectory. What is disorienting is the smorgasbord of opposites – past and future, tonal and atonal, control and freedom – that these and other contemporary works collectively represent.”
The Glenn Gould Of Collecting
Last summer Canadian art collector Ken Thomson paid $117 million for a Rubens (or maybe it wasn’t a Rubens, depending on who you ask). This month he announced a gift of $300 million to the Arts Gallery of Ontario. The man’s appetite for things art is voracious. “To describe Ken Thomson as a driven collector is like describing Glenn Gould as a gifted pianist; the words cannot quite do it justice.”
The Glenn Gould Of Collecting
Last summer Canadian art collector Ken Thomson paid $117 million for a Rubens (or maybe it wasn’t a Rubens, depending on who you ask). This month he announced a gift of $300 million to the Arts Gallery of Ontario. The man’s appetite for things art is voracious. “To describe Ken Thomson as a driven collector is like describing Glenn Gould as a gifted pianist; the words cannot quite do it justice.”
Languishing In The Provinces
England’s great regional temples of culture – “mostly built and stocked by Victorian philanthropy, – have become tatty and are withering for want of love, money and inspiration. The municipal museums and galleries of England have for too long been run by local authorities. When money is tight, their museums, like the libraries and parks, are the first to suffer.” The Central government has said it wants to help… but where is that help?
Messing With Wagner
A new production of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger has sparked angry boos. The staging, by one of Germany’s most progressive directors, includes an “on-stage disruption that breaks the score at a crucial moment and leads to an additional scene of dialogue.” At one point, “the music grinds to a halt, and the cast start a debate on what constitutes ‘German and genuine’. If you are a Wagnerite, this is blasphemy.”