“The museum’s conservation experts are hoping to salvage the painting. It was on loan to the Carnegie Museum of Art as part of the 2008 Carnegie International exhibit, one of eight works by Ms. Celmins depicting the night sky.”
Month: June 2008
LA Classical Music Station Goes Boom In The Ratings
“KUSC already had the largest audience of any nonprofit classical station in the nation despite a decline in its membership numbers and audience in recent years. Its latest average quarter-hour share of the total radio audience in Los Angeles and Orange counties, a key statistic in radio ratings, more than doubled from the same period a year ago, from a 0.8 to a 1.9.”
NYC Opera Commissions Brokeback Mountain Opera
“The New York City Opera has commissioned Charles Wuorinen to compose an opera based on Brokeback Mountain, the 1997 short story by Annie Proulx that became the basis for a 2005 movie that won three Academy Awards.”
Publishers Sues Mafia Don’s Daughter Over Book
The daughter of the “Teflon” mafia don John Gotti has been sued by her publisher over failed plans to produce a memoir of her father’s career as a camera-friendly face of organised crime.
Battle Of The Actors Unions
The Screen Actors Guild criticizes the deal made by rival AFTRA with Hollywood studios. “In an e-mail to members Sunday, SAG president Alan Rosenberg outlined what he called contract gains that AFTRA did not get, and said that he and the union’s negotiators are trying to win for SAG members.”
New York City Opera’s Great Big Gamble
“So how does Gerard Mortier propose to fight back against the 10,000-pound gorilla next door? By offering the public a megadose of modernism. And he might be right, too, since under-40 classical-music fans appear to be more open to new sounds than their parents.”
China – The Future Of Classical Music?
“China is buzzing with once-forbidden Western classical music activity, building world-class concert halls and expanding its conservatory facilities. According to Chinese music-industry executives, more than 40 million youngsters are currently studying the piano or violin.”
How We Wrecked The Cities
“European cities are going the way of cities in America: high-rise offices in the center, surrounded first by a ring of lawless dereliction, and then by the suburbs, to which those who work in the city flee at the end of the day. Admittedly, nothing in Europe compares with the vandalism that modernists have wreaked on Buffalo, Tampa, or Minneapolis. Nevertheless, the same moral disaster is beginning to afflict us–the disaster of cities in which no one wishes to live, where public spaces are vandalized and private spaces boarded up.”
Vatican Launches Drive To Attract Modern Art Masters
“Pope Benedict XVI has launched a campaign for a new era of religious art to rival the works of the Medicis. As religious themes become increasing influential among contemporary artists, the Holy See, which governs the Catholic Church, is searching for rich patrons to sponsor works in new houses of worship designed by cutting-edge architects.”
Kennedy Center Reaches Out For Nine Regional Dance Companies
“With all the big international groups we bring in, it’s getting harder for us to sell the regional companies of America. It’s important to see these wonderful companies; some of them have never been here before, like my alma mater, the Kansas City Ballet. I wanted to have them all, but I couldn’t give them each a full week; this is a way that made sense for them and for us.”