The Saratoga Perfoaming Arts Center, which has been recovering from financial challeneges of the past few years, has decided to forgive $1.2 million in debt owed to the organization by the National Museum of Dance and Hall of Fame. “The $1.2 million figure represents approximately 15 years of accumulated losses incurred by the museum and absorbed by SPAC. White said that writing off the museum’s debt will not affect SPAC’s current operating budget or its projected surplus for 2006.”
Month: March 2006
David Mamet On Mamet…
“He might only have lived and worked here for a handful of his adult years, but Chicago lays claim to Mamet with an uncommonly intense passion that it hopes is reciprocated but is never quite certain if that’s the case.”
Canada’s Artists – A Snapshot
A new study measures Canada’s arts workforce. “Toronto artists on average earned $34,100 a year. That’s almost $11,000 more than the national average for artists and almost $15,000 more that what artists in St. John’s get — but 11 per cent less than the average earnings for Toronto’s total labour force. Moreover, dancers in Toronto were found to earn on average less than $20,000 a year. In 2001 — the last year a full, nationwide census was completed — artists represented 0.8 per cent of Canada’s working population. But Vancouver had 7,250 artists in its total labour force of just over 307,000; at 2.4 per cent, that was the highest concentration of arts workers in the country.”
Barnes Gets $25 Million From State For Move
“At a news conference in the Grand Ballroom of the Park Hyatt at the Bellevue, Gov. Rendell announced that the state would contribute $25 million toward construction of a new home for the Merion museum on the site of the Youth Study Center, between 20th and 21st Streets. The grant announced yesterday is one of the largest such grants ever dispensed from Harrisburg.”
Chill Winds Blowing From FCC
“These days, apparently, the human condition on broadcast TV does not include any sexual behavior. Following sweeping Federal Communications Commission indecency decisions two weeks ago that resulted in proposed fines of more than $4 million against more than 125 TV stations, the WB has snipped every last sexy interlude from a pilot version it had already approved.”
SF Opera To Simulcast Outside
San Francisco Opera is following the lead of other companies such as Covent Garden, and will simulcast its first opera of this summer’s season. Tyhe broadcast will take place in an outdoor plaza. “What we want is to establish an overall image of the company as being community-friendly and very accessible, and to emphasize what I believe — which is that opera as an art form is accessible. Civic Center Plaza could accommodate as many as 12,000 to 15,000 at the outside if the circumstances were right. But I’d be happy with 5,000.”
Chamber Group Disbands Because Of Success
The Music Toronto Chamber Society played its last program this week. But the group is disbanding not because it can’t survive, but because its members have too much else to do…
Gold-Plated “Ring” (At Least The Tickets Are)
“The Kirov Opera’s Ring Cycle, which tours to the Wales Millennium Centre in November, sold out in just three hours on Monday. The cheapest tickets were £80 (standing, mind you) and the most expensive (wait for it) £750. My first thought was: you could have a luxury holiday for that. The second went something like this: stand? Eighteen hours? £80? What madness is this?”
Canadian Broadcasters Buying US TV, Not Canadian
Canadian broadcasters are spending more money on buying American shows than they are on Canadian shows. “Last year we were shocked that so-called Canadian private broadcasters spent four times more on U.S. programming than they did on original Canadian drama. Now we’re appalled to learn that in 2005, they spent almost five times more. The system is clearly broken.”
Music By Phone Scores Big
Music to Mobile phones is a huge hit in the UK. “Nearly 7% of all chart music bought this year has been downloaded through a mobile service. That represents nearly 70,000 chart singles bought every week by people on the move. Users of the 3G network 3 account for more than half the total sales with the rest coming from Vodafone and Orange.”