The Bodleian Library got a £3 million gift from the National Heritage memorial fund to save a trove of Mary Shelley’s papers in one place – and save the original manuscript of a Gothic classic. The award is to be used towards the purchase of a collection known as the Abinger papers, until now in private hands.
Month: December 2003
Maclean’s Staffers To Vote On Going Union
“About 20 part-time employees in the editorial division of Maclean’s magazine vote tomorrow on joining Canada’s largest media union in what is yet another sign of the troubled circumstances of Canada’s weekly newsmagazine. It’s anticipated the part-timers will vote overwhelmingly in favour of joining the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, which already represents the magazine’s estimated 27 full-time editorial employees.”
Let’s Don’t God Save The Queen!
David Blunkett is a sportswriter who has had to endure more singing of England’s national anthem than anyone ought to have to, he writes. What a sad little tune, without much redeeming value. “God Save The Queen offers neither entertainment nor cultural commentary… it stubbornly refuses to transcend the 18th-century stolidity of its four-square rhythms and trite melody.” Maybe it’s time for a competition for a new national song?
Is A Revolution Coming In Detroit?
With the Detroit Symphony having just announced a nearly $2 million deficit, the orchestra’s president and its new chairman seem to be throwing down the gauntlet at the feet of the city’s philanthropic community, as well as at the feet of their own musicians. President Emil Kang suggests that the current model for American orchestras may simply no longer be viable, and that solutions will not come easily. To the musicians of the DSO, who have already been asked to reopen their contract early, these may be fighting words. To the city’s corporate leaders, it will either be seen as a call to action or a desperate attempt to shame them into giving to an organization in trouble.
Two Rembrandts Stolen
Two Rembrandt etchings were stolen from a home in Melbourne last week. “Police said the etchings were taken along with their certificates of authenticity during a break-in at the family home. One of the etchings depicts a self portrait of the artist and the other a portrait of Rembrandt’s mother.”
Iraqi National Photo-Op Comes To D.C.
Tim Page was looking forward to the Washington debut of the Iraqi National Symphony. He’s still looking forward to it. According to Page, last night’s performance, which was callously manipulated by politicians and press alike, and in which the INS was mixed in with members of the D.C.-based National Symphony Orchestra, wasn’t a concert so much as a cynical photo-op for the Bush administration. “The State Department flew 60 musicians the 6,200 miles from Baghdad to Washington to play for less than an hour in tandem with members of the National Symphony Orchestra. As Winston Churchill might have put it, rarely have so many traveled so far to do so little.”
More Than Propaganda
Tim Smith admits that there was “a certain air of propaganda” about the Iraqi National Symphony’s Washington debut, but he says that the music-making won out in the end. “The considerable variance in technical ability among the Iraqi players, who range in age from 23 to 72, was unmistakable, but so was the commitment and energy behind the notes… As the music gently unfolded, it was impossible not to think of all those, Iraqi and American, who have died – and will continue to die – in this conflict. But the evening was most about the future, the promise of what a reinvigorated cultural life could bring to a country that has seen so much pain.”
Even San Francisco’s In The Red
During the various orchestral crises of the last few years, the San Francisco Symphony has been a shining example of fiscal and artistic balance, having planned for an economic downturn which few others saw coming, and having posted surpluses as other orchestras ran deficits in the millions. But even the SFS isn’t immune to a 4-year economic slump, and this week, it announced a small deficit of $135,945 on a budget of more than $50 million. Most American orchestras would be overjoyed to run so slightly in the red (or to have a budget that even approaches $50 million,) and San Francisco executives say they aren’t overly concerned about it.
Should America Get To Control The Internet?
Many Americans probably aren’t aware that their country controls the global Internet, and the vast majority of information technologies which make it up. But the rest of the world is well aware of it, and many other countries aren’t happy about it. “Some developing countries, including China, South Africa, India and Brazil, want control out of the hands of a private organization selected by the United States and instead with an intergovernmental group, possibly under the United Nations.”
Robertson To St. Louis
David Robertson, a 45-year-old American who has been among the rising stars of the conducting world in recent years, has been appointed the new music director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, beginning in fall 2005. The SLSO has been without a chief conductor since last April, when Hans Vonk was forced to step down because of severe health problems. The appointment is something of a public relations coup for the orchestra: the SLSO came close to bankruptcy last year before making a good recovery, and Robertson had been on the reported shortlist of nearly every major orchestra searching for a music director over the last few years.