Leonard Bernstein was a trailblazer. And yet, “since Bernstein’s passing in 1990, at 72, none of the Big Five American orchestras has appointed an American music director. Of the other leading U.S. orchestras, only the San Francisco Symphony, which is thriving under Michael Tilson Thomas, and the Atlanta Symphony, which recently named Robert Spano as its music director, have dared to engage native sons.” – Chicago Tribune
Author: Douglas McLennan
THE ESSENTIAL COPLAND
Aaron Copland would have turned 100 years old this week. “Ten years after Copland’s death, and 29 after Stravinsky’s, the latter seems secure as one of the seminal figures of 20th-century music. Copland’s position is more provincial, his reach only barely extending beyond the Americas. But Copland made it respectable to be a composer of art music in America.” – Dallas Morning News
UNDERSTANDING COPLAND
“All in all, there were roughly five Coplands, some of them overlapping. He was a Stravinskian modernist of the 1920s, a folk-inspired populist from the 1930s through the ’50s, an even more modernistic 1960s serialist, a Hollywood film composer who won an Oscar for 1949’s The Heiress, and, in the most encompassing characteristic of all, a musical dramatist. In all guises, Copland is, more than ever, a fixture in the American musical landscape.” – Philadelphia Inquirer
TROUBLE AT CARNEGIE HALL
The staff tumult at Carnegie Hall since its new director took over become nastier. “Maybe the Carnegie staff has not done its job and is being told so in no uncertain terms. Yet having observed the people who seem to be fleeing pell-mell from the building, I find that notion hard to believe. Another possibility is that Americans take more kindly to persuasion than to command and obedience. Resistance to strongly expressed authority is in our nature; in fact, it is why we happened as a country.” – New York Times
BRITISH MUSEUMS GET EXTRA MONEY
“Museums and galleries funded by the Government are to receive an extra £46 million over the next three years. Some £22 million will pay for urgent repairs and improvements to many of the ailing buildings, including leaking roofs at the British Museum and the National Gallery.” – The Times (UK)
NOW THAT WE’VE DONE LAS VEGAS
Guggenheim officials arrived in Rio de Janeiro this week to look at possible sites for a Latin American affiliate – “a museum that Brazil hopes would become a must-see on the international art circuit.” CNN
CURE FOR INSOMNIA
“Sleep is the least desired effect of orchestras, ballet companies, theatre troupes and opera ensembles; nevertheless, it is a common phenomenon in concert halls and theatres everywhere. Many of showbiz’s most influential powerbrokers are well-known shut-eye artists. Afterward, when they go backstage to congratulate the cast, they can truthfully say, ‘Your performance tonight was invigorating’.” – National Post (Canada) 11/11/00
SAVING WINNIE THE POOH
In Winnipeg, Canada “children are breaking open their piggy banks, seniors are dropping off $20 bills and well-heeled Winnipeggers are brandishing their chequebooks so the city can buy the large oval-shaped painting of A. A. Milne’s famous bear, honey pot in paw, at Sotheby’s auction house in London next week.” Winnie was inspired by a black bear bought in Ontario in 1914 and named after the buyer’s hometown of Winnipeg.” – The Globe and Mail (Canada) 11/11/00
PUBLISHER’S CLEARING HOUSE
Publisher Random House says it will now share all revenue from e-books 50-50 with authors. Some predict this may become the industry standard. Other e-publishers are not so sure: ”They’ve laid tracks that are very unwise. I think it’s a huge mistake on their part.” – Inside.com
IN THIS CORNER…THE BATTLING TOSCA
The rock-’em-sock-’em World Wrestling Federation has become one of the major sponsors of the Connecticut Grand Opera & Orchestra’s Education Program. “It would seem like there are a lot of differences, but there are facets of both that are the same. They perform on a stage, we perform on a stage. They have a story line with good and evil, greed and jealousy, just like we do. The only difference is they solve things through singing, we solve things using various household objects such as tables, chairs or ladders.” – Hartford Courant