“Rae Imamura, a pianist and music educator with an abiding passion for new and experimental music, died of cancer Saturday at her home in Berkeley. She was 63. For decades, Ms. Imamura was a devoted advocate for the works of living composers, including John Cage, Robert Ashley, Lou Harrison, Terry Riley, John Adams and Paul Dresher. Her collaborators also included jazz luminaries such as Ornette Coleman and the Art Ensemble of Chicago.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
West End’s Musical Performers Accept Pay Raise Offer
The members of British Equity who perform in musicals have voted to accept a proposal which will bring the minimum wage up to £600 per week. In exchange, Equity has agreed to allow Sunday performances.
Egyptian Government And St. Louis Museum Struggle Over Ancient Mask
The U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security is now involved in a dispute over the Ka-Nefer-Nefer burial mask, a 3,200-year-old golden relic which was recorded in storage in Egypt in 1959 but somehow wound up being acquired – apparently legally – by the St. Louis Art Museum in 1998.
Bournemouth To Get £3.2M Dance Centre
“Due to open in 2010, the facility [on England’s southern coast] will feature performance spaces for both professional and public use, plus a 190-capacity studio theatre. It is being built as part of arts venue the Bournemouth International Centre and Pavilion, which is currently undergoing a separate £13 million refurbishment scheme, funded by the Trevor Osborne Property Group, to improve its 1,430-seat auditorium and ballroom.”
On Not Making The A-List
There’s consternation in Philly – and even some bewilderment – that the Philadelphia Orchestra didn’t make Gramophone‘s recent list of the world’s 20 best orchestras. (Worse: the Philadelphians got mentioned in a sidebar with the heading, “Past Glories.”) But there are factors involved in such critics’ polls beyond the perversities of personal preference and groupthink. The time-lag between changes in leadership and changes in reputation, for one, and – in this instance – the perception of hostile treatment by the musicians toward outgoing music director Christoph Eschenbach.
‘It’s Green! It’s A Railroad! It’s Rural! Where Am I?’
“From the tracks of the High Line – the derelict elevated railway on New York’s Lower West Side currently being transformed into a mile-and-a-half-long ‘park in the sky’ – this most bustling of cities seems suddenly quiet and still…”
Wild Birds Learn ‘Foreign Languages’
“Birds may be bilingual, trilingual or better, suggest new findings that birds in the wild can learn the vocalizations of other species. The discovery not only proves that birds eavesdrop on what other birds are saying, but it also provides some of the strongest evidence to date that birds can learn ‘foreign’ calls, as opposed to just confusing similar sounds with their own.”
L.A. Film Festival Director Resigns, Another Casualty Of Prop 8
“Richard Raddon, the director of the Los Angeles Film Festival who has been at the center of controversy ever since it was revealed almost two weeks ago that he had contributed $1,500 to the campaign to ban gay marriage in California, resigned from his post over the weekend.”
Now Appearing, In The Role Of Poor Yorick
“A concert pianist’s dying wish to appear on stage in Hamlet has been realised 26 years after his death. André Tchaikowsky, a Polish Jew who escaped the Holocaust and settled in Britain, bequeathed his skull to the Royal Shakespeare Company to be used as a macabre prop… The relic finally emerged to take its place centre stage when David Tennant took on the role of Hamlet in Stratford-upon-Avon.”
Opera Australia Chief Tries Not To Cast Blame For Hickox’s Death
Calling the storm of argument over Richard Hickox’s tenure as the company’s music director “guerrilla warfare,” Opera Australia CEO Adrian Collette wouldn’t say that stress over the affair caused Hickox’s heart attack last weekend. But he made a point of saying that “I suppose if you are under a constant criticism then it must take its toll.”