Google says it will “create a virtual copy of the museum’s collections at its own expense, and make images of four millenniums of archaeological treasures available online, free, by early next year.”
Tag: 11.24.09
The Orchestra Music Problem
“As a composer I have avoided the orchestra, which is actually pretty easy for most composers to do since the orchestra largely ignores us. Much has been made about how despite what a wonderful timbral resource the orchestra is, there are so many limits as to what a composer can do with it based on the limits of rehearsal time and the weight of established conventions (on administrators, orchestra musicians, conductors, and audiences alike).”
Are Radio Royalties For Performers A Racial Issue?
“Radio broadcasters hate the idea of performance royalties — really, really hate it. They’re speaking up in Congress and on air.” Among the most vocal is Cathy Hughes, “the legendary founder of Radio One, the country’s largest chain of black radio stations.”
On New Nixon In China CD Set, Peter Sellars Is MIA
“After more than two decades, there is a new recording for what is increasingly being understood to be an American classic,” conducted by Marin Alsop. “But where’s Peter? No mention of Sellars is anywhere to be found on the Naxos three-CD set, as if Denver were the new China, where an inconvenient artist might be ‘disappeared’ Soviet-style.”
London Plans Festival To Compete With Edinburgh Fringe
“An almost month-long creative explosion of comedy, art, dance, music and film will take place in at least 18 venues across London at exactly the same time artists gather in the Scottish capital.”
Woody Allen Casts Carla Bruni-Sarkozy In Next Film
Says France’s first lady: “He offered me a role in his next movie. I don’t know for what character, but I said yes. I’m not an actress at all. Maybe I will be terrible. But, in my life, I cannot let such a chance go.”
Marsalis’s Blues Symphony Is, In Fact, Finished: Copyist
In response to a report that the thrice-postponed premiere of the piece was due to Wynton Marsalis’s creative block, the composer’s primary copyist writes, “I have the full score of the Blues Symphony complete with all seven movements. The piece is not being played in it’s [sic] entirety because of a lack of rehearsal time, not because the piece has not been finished.”
Royal Opera House Asks Young Composers For New Fanfare
“Covent Garden is offering 11- to 14-year-old composers the chance not only to have a piece commissioned by the House, but also played there every night. OK, so we’re not talking about a full-scale work: the competition is to write a fanfare to replace the hideous, deafening school bell that is rung to mark the end of the interval.”
Leading Haydn Scholar H.C. Robbins Landon Dead At 83
“Few musicologists achieve true celebrity outside their specialist field. But the name of HC Robbins Landon … was known by many thousands of people beyond the scholarly community. … It is no exaggeration to call him a titan, for Robbie, as he was universally known, was a giant in both physical and intellectual terms.”
‘An iTunes For Magazines’
“A consortium of magazine publishers including Time Inc. and Condé Nast are jointly building an online newsstand for magazines in multiple digital formats, according to people familiar with the plans.”