When Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre headed to New York for a run of shows at the Joyce Theater two weeks ago, the company was hoping to please both press and public with a pop-influenced program featuring music of Bruce Springsteen and Sting. Instead, PBT garnered a mixed bag of reviews, and while ticket sales were brisk, phrases like “lightweight” and “blatantly driven by marketing” didn’t do much for the company’s national image.
Month: April 2005
Cincy Opera Posts Help-Wanted Sign
Cincinnati Opera is looking for a new artistic director, and that person should reflect the progress the company has made in the past decade. “I think vision is imperative. Someone who comes here has to be able to look at what we’ve developed and say, ‘This company can go to the next level.’ I’m not sure that 10 years ago you could have said that. We want this to be their primary job.”
FBI ‘Dead Wrong’ Yet Again
Steven Kurtz is an artist. That much, no one is debating. But Kurtz uses various legally acquired biological agents (read: farm chemicals) in his work, some of which also appear on an FBI list of chemicals frequently sought by wannabe terrorists. When Kurtz’s stash was discovered by authorities following his wife’s death, he was pursued, jailed, and charged with crimes which could net him 20 years in federal prison. Now the art world is coming together to defend Kurtz, and raise money for his legal defense.
Real Good, Fake Bad (But Why?)
“So just what is wrong with a fake? Certainly not enough to stop forgery becoming a multi-million dollar business. Across Europe, America and Asia, anywhere from 15 per cent to a staggering 80 per cent (in Africa and China) of artworks offered for sale are thought to be fakes. Cases such as the gang of French and Belgian forgers jailed in 2001 for reproducing Cesar’s “compression” sculptures make headlines. And the Impressionist forgers John Myatt or Elmyr de Hory became so well known that their works are sought after because of the forger rather than the forged.”
Following Dutoit: Nagano In Montreal
Kent Nagano won’t officially become music director of l’Orchestre symphonique de Montréal until fall 2006, but the unusually soft-spoken maestro is already making his presence felt. Compared with the imperious Charles Dutoit, whose 23-year tenure at the Montreal helm ended in bitter fashion two years ago, Nagano is a decidedly new kind of director for the OSM, promoting a studious and humble approach to music-making, even as he speaks of the importance of building trust with audiences and begins to reshape the sound of the orchestra itself.
The Great Textbook Price Debate
Ask any college student or professor, and they’ll tell you that textbook prices are horrendously inflated, and that publishers are taking advantage of a captive group of consumers with no choice but to buy the books at whatever price. But the publishers insist that the problem is overblown, since students can frequently use the same book for multiple semesters, and most college bookstores will buy back used textbooks for up to 50% of their original cost.
New Jersey Symphony Exec Bolts For Scotland
“Just days after his one-year anniversary on the job, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra president and CEO Simon Woods announced he will leave, effective July 1, to become chief executive of the 113-year-old Royal Scottish National Orchestra, based in Glasgow, Scotland… The news is devastating for NJSO, which is groaning under a $19.5 million debt, in part due to subscription sales that have declined 41 percent in four years. NJSO also is struggling to regain public credibility following the 2003 purchase of 30 rare Italian string instruments from New Jersey philanthropist Herbert Axelrod, who was sentenced in March to 18 months in federal prison for an unrelated tax fraud scheme.”
The Intellect Behind The Wall
At his core, Saul Bellow was a teacher, but he was never much for disciples or devotees of his own work. “Bellow had himself well shielded from aspirants. Get in line: wives, children, students, writers, editors, lovers, biographers. I don’t mean this cruelly; it was part of Bellow’s genius. He reminded many people of their incompleteness, perhaps because he knew of his own. There was a rawness to him, almost like a wound, underneath the genteel polish and fiendish wit. His feathered fedora and striped shirts, his elegant manners and silken voice were enameled surfaces, under which he was, like his characters, at sea, the imposing intellect unable to ever lay down any reliable anchor – and not for want of trying, not for lack of greatness.”
Ground Zero Arts Center Plans Put On Hold
New York City’s $500 million campaign to rebuild Ground Zero has officially kicked off, but buried in the celebratory press conference was a disturbing change of plans: “As originally planned, the $500 million would help finance a memorial and a museum complex as well as [a Frank Gehry-designed] performing arts center, to be shared by the Joyce Dance Theater, which specializes in dance, and the Signature Theater Company, an Off Broadway group. But now the performing arts center will be part of a ‘second phase.'” Worse, officials at the Joyce and Signature groups appear to have been left uninformed about the change of status for their new home.
Post-Classical (And How We Got Here)
Why has classical music been on the decline in America? Joseph Horowitz tells a history aimed at suggesting some reasons. “History with a moral is by definition suspect. But Horowitz, for all the enthusiasm with which he espouses his various musical causes, is for the most part an impressively fair-minded historian who takes care to avoid superimposing contemporary agendas on past events. One need not always agree with his interpretations of those events in order to profit from his account of how European classical music took hold in a new world with sharply different cultural priorities—as well as from his speculations regarding its prospects of survival in the 21st century.”