“Conductor Roberto Paternostro has been appointed musical adviser to the Israel Chamber Orchestra, effective immediately. He will take responsibility for the music, the musical makeup of the orchestra, foreign tours and fund-raising… Additionally, noted violinist and baroque instrumentalist Elizabeth Wallfisch has been appointed to head the orchestra’s baroque programming.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Arts Editor Takes Sydney Opera House Stage
The Sydney Morning Herald‘s Richard Jinman offers a journal (that’s like a blog, kids, but all in one entry and printed on dead trees) on his stint as a supernumerary in Opera Australia’s Cavalleria rusticana.
Architecture Revival in Coventry
The medieval English city, devastated by World War II bombing, has seen a surge of innovative buildings go up near architect Basil Spence’s admired 1956 Coventry Cathedral, a landmark of 20th-century church design and symbol of the city’s rebirth.
Randy Adams, 64, CEO Who Saved St. Louis Symphony
A former banking executive, Adams took the reins of the SLSO in 2001; over six years, he saw the orchestra through the fatal illness of one music director (Hans Vonk), the recruiting of another (the coveted David Robertson), an all-too-close brush with bankruptcy and a bitter musicians’ strike – and the septupling of the orchestra’s endowment.
Helen Mirren To Star As UK’s National Theatre Begins Big-Screen Simulcasts
The Oscar-winning Dame’s first stage performance in six years – in Nicholas Hytner’s staging of Racine’s Phèdre – will be the first of four National Theatre productions broadcast live to movie theaters. The program includes 50 independent cinemas in Britain and a further 100 around the world.
Times Square Virgin Megastore To Close In April
The largest music store in the US by sales volume, the Times Square flagship is still profitable, but the Manhattan real estate gods are unforgiving: “Virgin pays only $54 per square-foot when the market rent in the area is about $700 a square foot.”
Ricardo Montalban, 88
He was a “suave leading man who was one of the first Mexican-born actors to make it big in Hollywood.” But he’s best remembered by Boomers and Gen-Xers as a preternaturally smooth TV pitchman for Chrysler, Capt. Kirk’s most bitter enemy in the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and as the presiding spirit on the series Fantasy Island.
Atlanta Ballet Raises $10 Million
Good news at last for the troubled company: its board is two-thirds of the way to completing “a campaign to raise $14.8 million toward purchase and renovation of a new headquarters on Marietta Boulevard west of downtown.” Among the pledges is $3 million from the Carlos Foundation, the largest single gift in the company’s history.
Off-Off Broadway’s Zipper Factory Abruptly Shuts Down
“[T]he funky midtown Manhattan space that offered edgy plays, pop and rock musicals, concerts, comedy and more, has closed its doors, owner Lee Z. Davis announced on Jan. 14. No other explanation was given.”
Schulz Used Actual Beethoven In Peanuts Strips
“When Schroeder pounded on his piano, his eyes clenched in a trance, the notes floating above his head were no random ink spots dropped into the key of G. Schulz carefully chose each snatch of music he drew and transcribed the notes from the score.”