As New York’s Museum of Modern Art prepares for its new home, a new curatorial team is chosen. “Almost immediately after being chosen as the Modern’s chief curator of painting and sculpture in March, John Elderfield, 60, decided he wanted a certain kind of team to help him shape the institution’s future. Those chosen should be young(ish), he specified, yet steeped in both classical and contemporary modern art; risk-taking but also willing to collaborate; similar in outlook but different enough to challenge one another. Bold visionaries residing in solitary genius need not apply.”
Tag: 12.26.03
Where Are The New Broadway Musicals?
By some measures you could say this has been a good season for the Broadway musical. But it hasn’t been, really. Where are the new songs? The really new work that worked? “There’s a real reluctance on the part of producers to take on new composers because to some degree no one is sure what a Broadway show is supposed to sound like anymore. Is it supposed to sound like Michael John LaChiusa? Or Alan Menken? If the Broadway sound were the pop music of the day, which it used to be, it would sound like hip-hop, but I don’t think anyone feels there’s much of a Broadway audience for that at the moment.”
Germany’s New Generation Of Writers
“A new generation of writers may have emerged in Germany over the past decade, but this renaissance in story-telling has gone largely unnoticed in the English-speaking world. A growing unwillingness on the part of especially large U.S. publishing houses to wager a bet on translated novels means that many of Germany’s promising young authors remain inaccessible, thus enhancing the impression that this country’s literary masters have kept their postwar focus on history and politics.”
Botstein Hired To Revive Jerusalem Symphony
Early this year, the Jerusalem Symphony briefly stopped paying its musicians, even though they agreed to 20% salary cuts to try to save the orchestra. The orchestra was placed in receivership, its chairman resigned amid accusations of financial mismanagement and going-out-of-business signs went up on the concert hall.” Now American conductor Leon Botstein has been hired to revive the orchestra’s fortunes. “Botstein was hired, with the backing of the Jerusalem Symphony’s musicians and Israeli cultural officials, to try to rescue the forgotten stepchild of Israeli orchestras after it had been all but abandoned by its main backer, the Israel Broadcasting Authority.”