“How could a city so precipitously consider abandoning something it has cultivated for more than a half century? Columbus is a metropolitan area of nearly two million, similar in size to both Cincinnati and Cleveland. But Columbus’s musical aspirations were never as high as those other Ohio cities’, nor has the orchestra enjoyed the same kind of community largesse.”
Month: June 2008
Composer To Al Gore Re: Your Global Warming Opera
“I loved your idea of matching the musical notes with the graphs of temperatures and CO2 concentrations, but the resulting melodies were unfortunate. I was unable to find any tenor or baritone able to sing either of the graphs. A pity — as you said, the High C0 Duet would have been “an opera first.”
Type-Casting
“Thinking of ourselves as types can help draw out facets of our personalities that we might otherwise miss or ignore. Where it often goes wrong is that people take on the types under which they are categorised as though they were deep, immutable facets of their identities.”
Retro Trend – Record That Music
“From iTunes to the iPlayer, you might think that you don’t need to record anything anymore. It’s just out there, all the time, waiting to be Googled. But the hunter-gatherer instinct is alive and well.”
Deborah Voight: Looks Do Matter In Opera
The slimmed-down soprano returns to Covent Garden this week. “I’m hoping that we don’t go so far as to put microphones on soubrette sopranos and have them singing Isolde. I don’t think that would be the case. Nonetheless, I think it would be foolish to think that singers don’t have to be more concerned about their physique than in decades past.”
A National Community College?
The University of Phoenix markets itself as a national private university (and the largest one at that). With more than 100,000 individuals now enrolled in its young two-year degree granting college, Axia, has it morphed into a national community college, too?
London’s Hairspray Sets Record In Breaking Even On Investment
West End musical Hairspray has become the quickest show ever to recoup at the Shaftesbury Theatre, earning back its entire £3.5 million capitalisation in 29 weeks.
Copernicus Book Sells For $2.2 Million
“The 1543 copy of Copernicus’ “De revolutionibus orbium coelestium” (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) was among more than 300 books offered Tuesday at Christie’s auction. It was expected to sell for up to $1.2 million.”
Claim: 400 Million Harry Potter Books Sold
“According to Rowling’s agent, Christopher Little, the seven Harry Potter books have so far been translated into 67 languages, amassing the 400 million figure since the publication of the first book in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, in 1997.”
Report: Consumer Video Spending Will Top $111 Billion By 2012
“Consumer spending on filmed entertainment will rise to $111.2 billion in 2012 from $85.9 billion last year, driven by Asia-Pacific growth and digital upgrades in homes and theaters, according to a report released on Wednesday.”