“Record labels these days are the stuff of great melodrama in the decline-of-Rome battles between petulant artists and the fading major brand names that print their work onto CDs. But music lovers these days know more about who built the blank CDs stacked in their ripping rooms than the name of the record company that puts out Queens of the Stone Age or Ashanti.”
Month: August 2003
Jarvi – Back Home In Estonia
Conductor Neeme Jarvi, who “turned 66 in June, left Estonia in 1980, but retains enormous patriotic affection for it. Jarvi’s word is magic in his home country, where he played a key role in inspiring the construction of the new Parnu concert hall and a new opera house and concert hall scheduled to open in 2008 in Tallinn, the capital and Jarvi’s hometown. He is an active participant in Estonian musical life, returning annually to conduct and teach at the academy that bears his name.”
Seattle’s New Opera House
When it looked like it was going to cost $99 million to upgrade Seattle’s Opera House just to make it earthquake-ready, the city decided to build a new one around the bones of the old. Now the new $127 million house has debuted…
Seattle – Sounding Good
The most important verdict: Acoustics in the new hall are “excellent.” “Though the seating capacity declined only to 2,890 from 3,017, the hall seems much more intimate. The side walls were narrowed, the balconies were extended and the proscenium was made higher. In a visually striking innovation, the side sections of orchestra seats slope upward so they connect with the first balcony.”
A New Old Take On Beethoven
Twenty years ago Early Music specialists bringing their aesthetic to Beethoven were a threat to modern orchestras. But modern orchestras continue to perform Beethoven, many of them incorporating the Early Music ideals fo conductors such as Roger Norrington. “To the extent that other conductors have reconsidered issues like balance, articulation, tempos and the use of string and wind vibrato, he has a point. He is taking the view that these interpretive issues are far more crucial than the use of old or new instruments, and he is proving it by spending much of his time with modern orchestras, including the Camerata Salzburg, which he brought to Lincoln Center for these concerts.”
Lightening Up On Video
Richard Dorment is enchanted by a new show of video art. In the 60s, he writes, video art opened up new possibilities for artists. “Art lightened up. Short video pieces could be funny, impromptu, sexy or apparently inconsequential – and yet be serious works of art. And whether artists worked behind the closed door of their studios or in a public gallery, the range of subject matter they could explore expanded dramatically. Nudity, eroticism, humour, physical endurance, and relationships between people – video enabled artists to treat all these themes with a new immediacy, informality and spontaneity.”
Why No Art At Edinburgh Festival?
As a major Monet show opens in Edinburgh, visual arts enthusiasts protest the exclusion of visual art from the popular Edinburgh Festival. “The medium has served a 12-year exile from the cultural extravaganza and many leading Scottish gallery figures believe a change is long overdue given the success of festivals in other genres such as books and films.”
Perlman, Brown, Burnett Win Kennedy Honors
This year’s Kennedy Center Honors are announced. Violinist Itzhak Perman is joined by fellow musician James Brown, comedienne Carol Burnett, country icon Loretta Lynn, film and theater director Mike Nichols. “The Honors is an annual ritual, now 26 years old, where illustrious stars and powerful politicians salute five ground-breakers in the performing arts for a lifetime of distinguished work.”
A Monet Show To Die For
Is the new exhibition of Monet opening in Edinburgh this week – after years of “wining, dining and bamboozling some of the world’s richest collectors” – really “the most intense Monet exhibition there has ever been”? It’s certainly the largest Monet show in the UK ever outside of London “It is two canvasses short of the 79 shown at the Royal Academy in London in 1999, when 813,000 paid to see Monet’s water lilies.”
San Antonio Symphony Tries To Dig Out Of Bankruptcy
The San Antonio Symphony has only $20,000 in its bank account. And it is meeting with creditors as it tried to reorganize in bankruptcy court. “The symphony hopes to be back in operation as early as November, December or January, and people who bought tickets for the 2003-2004 season will see those tickets honored. But first, the symphony and its musicians must settle on an employment contract. The symphony owes $228,000, or about three weeks’ worth of payroll, to its musicians under the old contract, which expired at the end of last season.”