“Jonathan Pell, longtime director of artistic administration at the Dallas Opera, has been promoted to artistic director. He’s the first person to hold the title since Nicola Rescigno, one of the company’s co-founders, who resigned in 1990.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Stamford Center For The Arts Left Out Of Proposed CT Budget
“The two-year budget proposed by legislative Democrats last week did not preserve any of the line-item funding in the 2009-10 and 2010-11 fiscal years. ‘We didn’t think it was a wise use of taxpayer money to fund an organization that is in bankruptcy’,” said the co-chairman of an appropriations subcommittee in the Connecticut state senate.
Orlando’s New Arts Center: Saved By The Pork?
The opening of the Philips Center for the Performing Arts is planned for 2012, but recession-related financial difficulties – notably a steep plunge in receipts from the county’s resort tax – threaten to delay or even derail the project. What could get things back on track? Why, a Congressional earmark, of course!
Coming Back From Tourette’s After An Onstage Disaster
In 1994, pianist Nic Van Bloss was playing in the international Chopin Competition when he began exhibiting the tics of his Tourette’s Syndrome mid-performance and had to leave the stage. On April 28 he performs in public for the first time since, with a concert at the Cadogan Hall in London. “It will be wonderful to say ‘yes, I can do this, finally’.”
Disabled Picket Authors Guild Over Kindle
“Some 200 people with print disabilities–physical impairments that restrict their ability to read print–protested in front of the Authors Guild headquarters in New York today, rallying against the Guild’s attempt to get Amazon to disable the Kindle 2’s text-to-speech function.”
Latest Layoffs and Pay Cuts: New Mexico Symphony
The orchestra has eliminated the jobs of three staff members, reduced salaries of the remaining 19 by 10%, and suspended pension contributions. NMSO management also hopes to persuade the musicians’ union to accept voluntary 10% pay cuts.
UK Catholic Priests Told To Stop Saying ‘Good Morning’ To Congregation
Says a spokesman for the Diocese of Leeds: “It is a debate that has been going on in the Church for a long time – are we doing a cabaret or are we actually celebrating the Eucharist? The fear is that if some guidance is not given and general decisions are not put down, the interpretation of the liturgy leads to unsuitable things, like strobe lights and girls in hotpants.”
Elastic Plastic Sponge
That’s the title of an enormous sculpture made of plastic tubing, 250 feet long and 25 feet wide, which will appear at California’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival next week. “And no doubt, festival-goers will find this to be one cool sculpture: It’s designed to spray water on passers-by.”
Wiki-ing The ‘Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam’
“The poem ‘Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam’ by Edward FitzGerald has gone interactive, courtesy of the Harry Ransom Center in Texas. Visitors to their website can compare the five different versions of the text, tag the poem and leave comments, almost as though FitzGerald had blogged his work, rather than publishing it on paper.”
ASCAP Chief Marilyn Bergman Stepping Down
The three-time Oscar-winning songwriter and composer led ASCAP for 15 years, during which time “she helped lead ASCAP to several major legislative victories, including the Supreme Court’s decision in 2003 to uphold the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 … [and] the passage and signing of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1998.”