“Adams… will be composing new works for the Los Angeles orchestra in addition to contributing innovative ideas. He will also serve as director of the orchestra’s ‘West Coast: Left Coast’ festival, a three-week multi-genre exploration of the music of California beginning in late November.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Some Actresses Don’t Need To Retire
It’s not enough that 81-year-old Estelle Parsons is starring eight times a week in August: Osage County on Broadway – she’s doing the national tour afterwards. (She lifts weights, too.) Meanwhile, Olympia Dukakis, 77, will do a six-wwek run in Craig Lucas’s The Singing Forest at the Public Theater this spring.
They Fess Up: Inauguration Quartet Was Lip Finger-Synching
Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Anthony McGill and Gabriela Montero did in fact play Air and Simple Gifts at the inauguration. “But what the millions on the Mall and watching on television heard was in fact a recording, made two days earlier by the quartet and matched tone for tone by the musicians playing along.” Explanation: the cold made them do it.
Sacramento Ballet Calls Off Its Main-Stage Season
“The Sacramento Ballet will cancel its remaining three productions for the 2008-09 season in an attempt to get back on its feet financially.” But the company is not closing, and its dancers will perform this spring in the studio, the schools “and such nontraditional venues as art galleries.”
Star-Studded £125M Contemporary Art Collection To Make UK-Wide Tour
“The travelling exhibition, announced at Tate Modern yesterday, will include many of the 725 cutting-edge artworks given by… Anthony D’Offay to Tate and National Galleries of Scotland last year, on proviso that [they]… be displayed across the nation rather than hidden away in the vaults… and occasionally wheeled out for an urbane London audience.”
Milwaukee Symphony Reports What, In This Climate, Counts As Good News
Ticket sales and contributions are actually growing at the MSO, but not as quickly as had been budgeted. To make up for a projected $500,000 shortfall, the orchestra’s management has instituted a hiring freeze and cancelled four of five free summer concerts.
Rediscovered Mozart Piece Has Modern Premiere
That brief piece of violin music by Mozart that was found last year in a Nantes archive has had its first performance in that city.
Immigration Protesters Interrupt SF Ballet Gala
“Singing, chanting and calling on local and national officials for more compassionate immigration policies, more than 200 immigrants and their allies marched Wednesday through San Francisco’s City Hall, startling the tuxedo- and ball gown-clad guests arriving for the opening night gala of the San Francisco Ballet.”
Politics Collides With Art (Again): Turkish Company Cancels Israel Tour
“Istanbul State Opera and Ballet has taken a united stand in the face of the tragic circumstances occurring in Palestine, by canceling a tour of Turkish Culture Days to the Israeli city of Jaffa.”
UK’s Channel 4 Offers To Spend £5 Billion On British Productions
The network is even promising to spend one-fourth of that budget (£1.25B) on programming made outside of greater London. “However the broadcaster says the money will only be spent if it can secure fresh investment to support its public service activities. The announcement [is] regarded as a last ditch attempt to lobby the government for public funds.”