“Joseph Joachim, who died 100 years ago this Wednesday … personified an era that understood Great Music as religion. Yet people liked as well as venerated him,” and this friend of Brahms and the Schumanns was one of the 19th century’s greatest violinists. “White, male European and dead, Joachim might look today like a strong candidate for Most Famous Violinist Nobody Under 60 Has Ever Heard Of. Yet a few vital signs can still be detected by anyone inclined to look and listen for them.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
At NYC Fringe, Doing It For Love, Definitely Not Money
The New York International Fringe Festival “this year is expected to sell more than 75,000 tickets to nearly 200 productions (culled from more than 1,000 applications).” It will do that on an operating budget of $840,000, with only two full-time employees. “Otherwise the Fringe relies on over 1,100 part-timers and volunteers to do some remarkably demanding work. … Site directors make only $800, though that’s up $200 from last summer. Box office managers net $500. Almost everyone else is unpaid.”
Mann Center President Decamps After A Decade
“Peter B. Lane, president and chief executive officer of the Mann Center for the Performing Arts, will leave the semi-outdoor Fairmount Park facility in mid-September after a decade of shoring up the center’s financial stability and revamping its public identity. The announcement, made yesterday by the Mann Center, said Lane will become CEO of Bethel Woods Center for the Arts at the site of the 1969 Woodstock Festival in Upstate New York.”
Unveiled: Contenders For West Coast’s Tallest Building
“Three competing proposals for what would be the tallest building on the West Coast were unveiled Monday in San Francisco amid architectural fanfare and political buzz. There’s no guarantee that any of the towers will be built, or that the design to be selected next month by public officials will reach the heights envisioned by the development teams. But the audacity of the designs – and the favorable response from elected officials – showed that the recent startling changes to the city’s skyline are only a prelude to what could lie ahead.”
Seeking San Francisco’s Architectural Essence
“San Francisco’s architecture isn’t defined by specific heights, or a checklist of specific design elements, such as bay windows or Victorian frill. Our brand of urbanity is rooted in some ineffable sense of place and state of grace – subjective yardsticks indeed. But this I do know: The buildings and districts and landscapes we’ve inherited are strong enough to withstand the shock of the new.”
Buck’s “Good Earth” Manuscript Prompts Legal Claim
“A literary mystery appeared to be solved this year when a long-lost manuscript of Pearl S. Buck’s novel ‘The Good Earth’ surfaced in a sale tied to a former secretary’s family. … But at least two foundations with links to the Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winner, who died in 1973, now hope to share in the discovery. And a legal brawl could be on tap….”
Want Your Infant To Talk? Turn Off “Baby Einstein.”
“Parents hoping to raise baby Einsteins by using infant educational videos are actually creating baby Homer Simpsons, according to a new study released today. For every hour a day that babies 8 to 16 months old were shown such popular series as ‘Brainy Baby’ or ‘Baby Einstein,’ they knew six to eight fewer words than other children, the study found.”
Strapped For Kroner, Bergman Archive Is In Danger
“Lack of coin has put the future of the Ingmar Bergman archive in jeopardy, just a few days after the multihyphenate’s death. The annual budget for the archive is 2 million kroner ($250,000), provided by the Swedish government. But execs say they need $600,000 more to digitize Bergman’s papers. His early notes are written on paper so thin that it is almost impossible to leaf through them.”
Music Publishers Join YouTube Copyright Fight
“A group of music publishing companies said yesterday it would join a copyright infringement lawsuit against Google’s video-sharing site YouTube. The group, the National Music Publishers’ Association, said it was joining the lawsuit out of concern that many songwriters were not receiving proper compensation when their music appeared on YouTube videos.”
Masekela: South African Govt. Silencing Musicians
“One of South Africa’s greatest musicians — a hero of the struggle against apartheid — believes that he is no longer welcome as a performer in his own country. The virtuoso trumpeter Hugh Masekela claims that many of the talented musicians whose voices became symbols of protest against white domination are finding it hard to get bookings in South Africa because the ruling ANC is ‘terrified’ of music as an agent of change.”