“Paris’s futuristic new classical concert venue, the Philharmonie de Paris – a vast metal construction which promises to transform the northern Paris skyline – is on track to become the world’s most expensive concert hall despite attempts by some politicians to block it because of its spiralling price tag.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Putin Grants Gérard Depardieu Russian Citizenship
The obstreperous screen legend has been loudly announcing his plans to leave France over the new government’s tax increases on wealthy citizens. Now President Vladimir Putin has offered the actor a Russian passport and residency permit. Said a grateful Depardieu, “I love your culture, your intelligence. My father was a communist of that era. He listened to Radio Moscow! That is my culture too.”
2012 In Books: A Couple Of Lit Crits Sitting Around Talking
Daniel Mendelsohn and Laura Miller toss around the year’s literary disappointments (no bogus memoirs exposed!), shenanigans (lots of bogus reader reviews exposed), and the nature of bad reviews.
Illuminating Canvas: Art Critics On Real Painters Of Light
“Four art critics for The New York Times select artworks from New York museums and discuss the varied use of light.” (No, there’s no Thomas Kincade; yes, of course there’s Vermeer, but there’s also Mondrian, a Mesopotamian potter and an unknown colonial Peruvian.)
St. Louis Symphony Keeps David Robertson Through 2015-16
“The St. Louis Symphony has extended Music Director David Robertson’s contract through the 2015-16 season. Robertson joined the symphony in the 2005-2006 season as its 12th music director.”
Remembering Australia’s Forgotten Nobel Laureate At 100
“A hundred years after his birth, Patrick White (1912-1990) remains Australia’s only Nobel laureate for Literature (in 1973), but he’s as unknown to most readers as his name is nondescript. Though it rightly inducted him into the company of Faulkner, Hemingway, Beckett, and Bellow, White’s Nobel has done little to ensure the longevity of the work that earned it.”
M. S. Gopalakrishnan, 82, Master Of South Indian Violin
One of the greatest exponents of Carnatic music, Gopalakrishnan was equally revered as a soloist and for accompanying singers and fellow instrumentalists. Unusually, he was equally comfortable playing in the very different styles and forms of Hindustani (North Indian) classical music.
Fighting And Fuming Over French Cinema (And Its Subsidies)
An essay in Le Monde titled “French Actors Are Paid Too Much!” has occasioned a great debate among cinéastes about how many and what kind of films get made in France – and how government funding supports, or distorts, the country’s film industry.
Talks Resume, With A Bit More Civility, At Twin Cities’ Orchestras
“The rhetoric softened noticeably … [as] management and musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra agreed Wednesday to create a ‘fresh start to negotiations’. … Meanwhile, union and management negotiators at the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra also met Wednesday for the first time in nearly two months.”
The Man Who ‘Takes A Low Crime And Turns It Into An Art Form’
Apollo Robbins “is a peculiar variety-arts hybrid, known in the trade as a theatrical pickpocket. Among his peers, he is widely considered the best in the world at what he does, which is taking things from people’s jackets, pants, purses, wrists, fingers, and necks, then returning them in amusing and mind-boggling ways.”