The Oregon Symphony’s new manager says bold steps are needed if she’s going to save the orchestra. What needs changing, according to her analysis? “We do a lot of classical programming.” Too much, she means. “At the beginning of the 21st century, you can no longer look at any market as homogenous. You’ve got to find niche markets, and I don’t see too much of that here.”
Tag: 12.17.06
Progress – Back To The Caves
Has there really been any progress in art over the millennia? “To understand cave art, we must first radically adjust how exactly we define ‘primitive’ and then throw conventional notions of artistic progress out the window.”
Are We Getting Less British?
“Blaming foreigners for an imagined decline in Britishness is a terrible but commonplace calumny. In fact, as a handful of the more Enlightened traditionalists have noticed, immigrants are more likely to uphold Victorian values of family self-sufficiency, modesty, reserve, piety than native-born British libertines, who never pray, can’t keep their trousers on and vomit on tradition.”
Police Brace For Possible Opera Riot
Police will be on high alert for Monday’s performance a controversial production of Mozart’s Idomeneo in Berlin. “It’s a case of art meeting religious sensibility — and a decision that the show must go on, despite concerns that the production, featuring the severed head of the Prophet Muhammad, could prompt violence.”
Finding Good Music In The Age Of Hype
“Today, it’s hard to know when buzz is more than just noise. In an age of accelerated connection, the buzz around every art form has intensified, but nowhere as much as in music. The growing ease of music-making and distribution resulted in 60,000 releases (that’s in the U.S. alone) last year. Downloadable music multiplies that number like bunnies in spring. And pop’s historical embrace of novelty and amateurism means that few heavy gates stop the flow.”
Diagnosis Dickens
“Dickens has long been recognized as a skillful and accurate chronicler of human behavior. His characters are rendered with a realist’s dedicated, unstinting eye. Physician readers of Dickens’s stories have commented on the precision with which he portrays his characters’ quirks and oddities — many of which are now recognized as disease states. Some of his most memorable characters are virtual case studies of diseases that were not described or understood until long after Dickens’s time.”
Phone Companies Closer To Offering TV
“Telephone carriers see offering television service as a way to better compete against cable companies, which are vying for more customers with new voice and high-speed Internet services. The FCC sees the move as a way to spur more competition.”
Rediscovering Francesca Woodman
“As often happens in the natural cycle of the art world, the photographer’s work has found new resonance among today’s artists, who are looking back at the 1960s and ’70s with fresh eyes and combining the past and present in inventive ways.”
Smoking Ban Threatens Theatres
Colorado’s state smoking ban has cast the future of the Phoenix Theatre and the Next Stage Theatre Company in doubt…
The Slur As Entertainment
A number of recent entertainment projects suggest that “old-school mockery, refitted for a new, post-politically-correct era, is making a comeback.”