He made more than 60 recordings. “When he was 12, he made his debut with an orchestra, playing the Grieg concerto with the Dallas Symphony as a last-minute replacement for a soloist who had fallen ill. Mr. Pennario ‘fibbed and said he knew the concerto when he didn’t,’ but he learned the piece in a week.”
Month: June 2008
Charles Parkhurst, 95, The Monument Man
“As a lieutenant in the Navy and a trained art historian, Mr. Parkhurst was deputy chief of Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives in Germany immediately after the war. The team… attracted an international group of young museum directors and curators, art professors and architects. Known as the ‘monuments men,’ their mission was to identify art works and buildings in need of protection and to ferret out caches of stolen art.”
James Joyce, The Music
“Joyce’s classical training and his encyclopaedic grasp of musical tradition are well known, but it’s anyone’s guess what he would have made of this year’s most unorthodox Bloomsday project, in which Fire Records has commissioned a virtual Who’s Who of alternative music to set to music all 36 of the poems.”
Could Jeune Lune Have Been Saved?
“Could the theater have been saved? Do theaters have a natural life cycle, as some in the company have suggested? Is this closing an anomaly, or a cautionary tale with implications for other arts groups?”
The Next Generation Of Arts Patrons – Groomed And Ready
“Arts institutions have been cultivating people in their 20s and 30s for years as a way of shoring up future donors. But Sarah Arison and Jenny Coyne are not merely passing through, writing a check and dressing up for a night in order to rub the right shoulders. They are among a small and privileged group who hope, and are being groomed, to do much more: to take over the family business, so to speak — that business being arts patronage.”
When Jazz Represented America To The World
“The idea behind the State Department tours was to counter Soviet propaganda portraying the United States as culturally barbaric. Powell’s insight was that competing with the Bolshoi would be futile and in any case unimaginative. Better to show off a homegrown art form that the Soviets couldn’t match — and that was livelier besides. Many jazz bands were also racially mixed, a potent symbol in the mid to late ’50s, when segregation in the South was tarnishing the American image.”
First Families Of The Theatre
“The theater’s family businesses stretch well beyond those who put on the shows. Name a trade tangentially related to the stage, and you can find its version of the Booth clan. Here are a few.”
Why Stress About Cravings? Get Happy!
A new brain study shows that thinking happy thoughts could help dampen cravings.
Marin Alsop, Cultural Ambassador
“Alsop, who just wrapped up a successful inaugural season as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, is very much at the forefront of the American cultural arena today. People all over want to hear what she has to say, not just what she happens to conduct.”
3D Movies – Will They Be A Hit This Time?
“Increasingly movies – including two out next month – are banking on a level of 3-D depth that promises to go beyond gimmicky and become a new way of storytelling.”