Einojuhani Rautavaara – not exactly a name that rolls trippingly from the tongue. But the Finnish composer is rated by some as “one of the greatest living composers” working today. The Philadelphia commissioned a new symphony and premiered it in Helsinki last week. It got a polite, but not ecstatic reception. – Philadelphia Inquirer
Author: Douglas McLennan
STRIFE HAPPENS
String quartets are volatile organisms. Both music and personalities are magnified in relationships between members. Is it a marriage? A partnership? There’s no place to hide in a magnified and distorted existence. – Chicago Tribune
AMATEUR PIANISTS GATHER IN FORT WORTH
The Van Cliburn International Piano Competition is one of the top competitions in the world. But last year the Clibun launched a second competition – one for older, amateur pianists. The level proved to be very high, and the second edition of the competition is about to get underway. – Dallas Morning News
PLACIDO DOMINGO DAY
“The list of the tenor’s accomplishments — as singer, conductor, opera Intendant (in Washington, D.C., and, starting this summer, in Los Angeles) and restaurateur — is unrivaled in today’s opera world; and for a vocalist who, officially, turns 60 this year, his longevity is nothing less than astonishing.” – San Francisco Examiner
PHOTOGRAPHER WINS
A day after the Supreme Court declined to stop them, 150 people posed nude under New York’s Williamsburg Bridge for a photographer. – ABC News
THE BROADWAY THEME PARK
David Hasselhoff? The Harlem Globetrotters? Upcoming attractions on Broadway read more like a cheap weekend in Vegas than a serious stab at serious theatre. – Inside.com
LOOTED ART TO STAY IN RALEIGH
After agreeing to give up a painting by Cranach to heirs of the collector it was stolen by the Nazis from, The North Carolina Museum of Art gets a surprise. Rather than selling it on the open market, the heirs sell it back to the museum for a fraction of its value. – Scripps Howard
MUSEUMS GRAPPLE WITH FUNDING ETHICS
Ever since last year’s revelations about funding for the Brooklyn Museum’s “Sensation” show, museums have been thinking hard about how they fund exhibitions. Last week, New York’s Metropolitan Museum canceled a show of Coco Chanel’s work. “I need to be able to assure people that what they see on the walls is not inflected by the money we receive to do an exhibition,” Met director Philippe de Montebello told The New York Times. “And if I can’t make that assurance, I’m not doing it.” – New Jersey Online
OVERKILL?
The National Ballet of Canada is suing NOW Magazine for $1 million over an ad the magazine published last month supporting fired dancer Kimberly Glasco. The ad compared the non-renewal of Glasco’s contract to the dismissal of Jewish artists in Nazi Germany. – CBC
THE TONY TANGO
Trying to handicap this year’s theatre work up for honors at this Sunday’s Tony Awards is difficult as usual. In the running is “an odd mishmash of daring new work and lukewarm fare that has left theater professionals searching for a cohesive theme.” – New York Times