The Boston Symphony will play a concert in Paris next month under the Eiffel Tower as part of the city’s millennium celebration. The program features Andrea Bocelli and a chorus of 600 voices, music by Bach and Berlioz, and the finale of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Officials are expecting a crowd of at least 100,000, and the program will be telecast and broadcast live throughout France by FR-2 (television) and Radio Classique. – Boston Globe
Author: Douglas McLennan
RECONSIDERING CLASSICAL ENHANCEMENT
Electronic amplification of classical music concerts has been a controversial subject for fans. But maybe it’s time to reconsider… – Boston Herald
CLIPPED WINGS
In Toronto, a task force seems ready to recommend that the Hummingbird Center, the city’s main performing arts venue, be decommissioned after the Canadian National Opera moves into a new home. Hummingbird fans are outraged. – The Globe and Mail (Canada)
WHEN A CAR IS NOT A CAR
One of Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous inventions was said to be the “automotive car.” Turns out that’s not what it is at all, says a scholar. – Wired
CERTAIN RETURN
Germany says it expects to find owners for all the art stolen by Nazis, and rejects the suggestion by the World Jewish Congress “that heirless assets be auctioned, like the so-called Mauerbach collection, which consisted of unclaimed Jewish art in Austria and was sold several years ago for the benefit of the Jewish community. That auction raised more than $13 million.” – Jerusalem Post
MUSEUMS BUSTING OUT ALL OVER
London is bursting with new cultural venues – new museums, new art. It’s a feast paid for with national lottery proceeds. “The Lottery is clearing out the musty nooks and attics of London’s large and small art galleries and museums, and with them the crabby spooks of the curators, scholars and civil servants whose eccentric decisions were embedded in the buildings’ fading fabric.” – London Evening Standard
LOOK WITHIN FOR ENLIGHTENMENT
Four documents, which were discovered inside an ancient Japanese Buddhist statue while it was undergoing restoration in Kyoto, have helped art experts confirm the dates of the birth and death of Kaikei, a famous sculptor of Buddhist images during the 13th century. The documents included a mourning schedule in honor of the artist. – Daily Yomiuri (Japan)
VERY VERY OLD
Pottery found in Eastern China dating back 4,800 years has inscriptions of Chinese characters. This predates by some 2000 years what were previously thought to the earliest Chinese characters found on bones and tortoise shells. – China Times
ARE YOU INSANE?
Well, actually, yes. A new show of art “consists primarily of drawings and paintings on paper gathered during the early decades of the 20th century from asylums in Germany, Switzerland and Austria by doctors at the psychiatric clinic of the University of Heidelberg.” – New York Times
ROAD MAP FOR ART
The Detroit Institute of Arts has put up a flip chart next to a Barnett Newman painting. The pages attempt to walk viewers through the painting explaining it. “People aren’t born knowing how to look at a work of art,” says Nancy Jones, DIA education director. “It’s a skill. We need to help all people have a viable experience and that’s a fairly new approach. The old approach used to be ‘Here it is. Good luck.’ ” – Detroit Free Press