Three Tenors to perform for the first time in same evening at the Metropolitan Opera. – Times of India (AP)
Author: Douglas McLennan
SEIJI OZAWA –
– opens music school in Tokyo. – CBC
CONDUCTOR AND CEO
- Sony chairman Norio Ohga is also a conductor. “When I was 60 years old I started conducting. I was invited to the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival,” recalls Ohga. “Our recording group recorded all my concerts [and] they decided to release a CD. Lorin Maazel heard this CD and immediately he wrote me a letter [saying], ‘You are such a wonderful musician, and I wish to invite you to the Pittsburgh Symphony.'” – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“IF I CAN DO IT, IT AIN’T ART”
Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura’s definition of art is simple. Picasso, yuchh. Matisse? Who’s that? “My good friend Steve (the governor’s former tag-team partner) would paint my official portrait.” – Chicago Tribune
BAD “TREATMENT”
Chinese film crew in St. Louis to make a movie about a Chinese couple in the Midwest, say their reception in America has been anything but welcoming. – St. Louis Post-Dispatch 02/18/00
ITALIAN FILM WITH NO BUDGET —
— wins short-film prize at Berlin Film Festival. – Die Welt (Germany) 02/18/00
FLOWER OF IRAN
It’s tempting to describe the deeply personal films being made in Iran these days as fragile flowers struggling to thrive through a repressive government. “But their relationship with the fundamentalist regime and its social agenda is more ambiguous than that. For better or worse, this is a cinema that exists in its present form not in spite of, but because of the restrictions it has to circumvent.” – LA Weekly 02/18/00
A SATURDAY NIGHT 40 YEARS AGO
A Stephen Sondheim show, written four decades ago, finally gets its premiere. – New York Times
PANEL ON NAZI ART
The British government is setting up a panel to resolve disputes about artwork looted by the Nazis and now housed in British museums. – Washington Post
SAINTHOOD DESERVED?
Georgia O’Keeffe has long been elevated to the role of secular American art saint, particularly by those in search of a great female artist to worship. New retrospective strips away decades of rhetoric to take a fresh look at the artist’s work. – San Francisco Examiner