Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts is teaming up with the New York-based Shubert Organization in a new venture to bring touring Broadway shows to two venerable Philly venues. “Presentations would take place at the Academy of Music or the Forrest Theatre, allowing both organizations ‘the chance to perpetuate and enhance the presentation of legitimate theatrical attractions in Philadelphia.'”
Month: July 2006
Kazaa Pays Up, Goes Legit
A couple of years ago, Kazaa was the poster child for illegal file-trading services, and found itself on the receiving end of a blistering legal assault by the recording industry, which is determined to stamp out music piracy online. Now, Kazaa has agreed to pay out millions of dollars in penalties, and is hoping to follow in the footsteps of Napster, reinventing itself as a legal music downloading service.
Australia’s Unique Solution To Illegal Copying
An Australian cultural fund called Copyright Agency Limited has been quietly assisting writers and publishers in protecting their work and ideas for more than 20 years, and in this age of digital information access, its work is becoming ever more important. “With digital copying gradually being corralled along with photocopying, the agency’s revenues have grown from $72 million in 2003-04 to $86 million in 2004-05 and more than $100 million in the past financial year. This will be distributed in roughly 5000 payments to its members.”
PBS Chief: FCC Needs To Be More Flexible
The head of PBS is firing back at the FCC over the agency’s new no-tolerance policy governing profanity on television, saying that it is “important for public broadcasting not to just roll over, but to be very clear that in order to tell some stories, we may need to use language that, at the moment, the FCC is not sure that they feel is appropriate for broadcast television.” PBS is worried that it will have to cut or digitally obscure certain words in the latest Ken Burns documentary, focusing on World War II, in order to avoid heavy FCC fines.
Should A Glance At Greatness Really Cost More In New York?
Since going on public display at New York’s Neue Gallery, Gustav Klimt’s 1907 masterpiece “Adele Bloch-Bauer 1” has been drawing crowds and controversy in roughly equal measures, with the latter sparked by the Neue’s quickly abandoned plan to charge visitors $50 to view the Klimt. But despite the Neue’s course correction, the outrage over the steep admission price has spread, and a much-needed debate over what it costs to gain admission to New York’s various museums and galleries is now well underway.
Make Or Break Time For Toronto Arts Center
Toronto’s Hummingbird Centre for the Performing Arts, reeling from the recent departures of its two resident companies, is moving to rebrand itself as “a multipurpose, multicultural facility.” But more than a repurposing will be necessary to keep the center humming: a new business plan recently approved by Toronto’s city council compels Hummingbird to raise $60 million in the next year, or face becoming a tenant of the real estate company that’s spearheading the center’s ongoing expansion project.
Curator, Know Thy Collection!
Canada’s national archives recently came tantalizingly close to acquiring a $200,000 map of the country dating from the mid-17th century. What stopped the sale? Turns out the archive already had one. How could such an embarrassing slip-up have occurred? Well, it’s complicated, but part of the problem may be that the archive “has shifted cultures, from one based on specialized curators who knew their collections in depth, to a more open, democratized strategy.”
Still Museum Names Design Finalists
Colorado’s Clyfford Still Museum has named five prominent architectural firms as finalists in the race to design the museum’s 30,000-square foot headquarters. When completed, the privately funded museum will house 2,100 of Still’s works, donated to the city of Denver by the artist’s widow. A final decision on the architecture is expected in early November.
Spending Money To Raise Money
“Seven Chicago grantmakers have teamed up to help small arts groups develop the business side of their operations. The group has pooled more than $600,000 to create the Arts Work Fund for Organization Development. It is aimed at area arts and cultural non-profits that have been around at least three years and have operating revenues of less than $1 million.”
Walking Away
One of the opera world’s behind-the-scenes stars is leaving it all behind this summer. Peter Jonas, who has led English National Opera and Munich’s Bavarian State Opera over the course of a 21-year career as a general manager, will retire in September at the comparatively young age of 59. “Intellectual rigour and confrontational energy” are terms often used to describe Jonas’s management style, and it’s no coincidence that his happiest years came with the relatively small and provincial Munich company.