The Liebieghaus in Frankfurt is working with the Louvre and the Prado on new laser technology to analyze the stone and an agar-agar-based gel to clean it.
Author: Matthew Westphal
The Big Corporations Using Orchestras As Staff Development Tools
“‘There’s no activity in the world where you have to react so quickly to each other and work together so well as in an orchestra,’ says Johanna Weitkamp, conductor of the symphony orchestra at the enterprise software company SAP. … Other [German] companies with employee orchestras include engineering firm Siemens, maker of trains and medical scanners; carmakers Daimler, BMW and Ford; auto components and electronics maker Robert Bosch GmbH; airline Lufthansa, and chemical firm BASF.”
Keely Smith, Cabaret And Nightclub Singing Star, Dead At 89
“[She] became a nightclub sensation in the 1950s with her then-husband, the comically disruptive entertainer Louis Prima, and … gradually emerged from his shadow as an acclaimed solo performer” whose hits with bandleader Nelson Riddle, on Capitol and later on Frank Sinatra’s Reprise label, included the million-seller “I Wish You Love” and “Little Girl Blue/Little Girl New.”
How To Tell Whether A Much-Restored Old Painting Is ‘A Wreck’
“I hate to say it, but I think we must now accept that the Leonardo is a wreck. Severe flaking was recorded as early as 1517 and according to Vasari it was ‘ruined’ by 1556. Vigorous overcleaning and retouching has only made things worse. It’s time for a proper debate on how much ‘original’ Leonardo is actually visible. Persuading people to queue around the block to see such a damaged painting is simply a triumph of marketing over connoisseurship. But that’s enough about The Last Supper.”
This Museum Will Leave You Upset, And That’s A Very Good Thing
“To a startling degree, and despite being a state-sponsored institution, [it] refuses to sugarcoat history.” Holland Cotter visits the new Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson.
Dallas Opera CEO Unexpectedly Resigns For New Job In Calgary
Keith Cerny is ending what’s widely seen as a successful seven years in Dallas – stabilized finances and balanced budgets, notable premieres, the signing of a new music director and principal guest conductor, a new and well-regarded training program for young female conductors – to take the reins at Calgary Opera, a company that’s roughly half the size of the one he’s leaving.
Jack Boyle, 83, Helped Create The Modern Rock-Concert Industry
He started out as “a self-described ‘tone deaf’ concert promoter who turned Washington’s tiny Cellar Door music club into a venue that hosted the likes of Neil Young and Miles Davis” and went on to create Cellar Door Productions, “[which] produced more than 500 events each year and reportedly grossed up to $100 million annually, booking acts such as the Rolling Stones, Madonna, Pink Floyd, the Dave Matthews Band, U2 and the Who.”
Twin Cities Music School Shuts Down Without Warning
Just as the semester was ending, administrators at McNally Smith College of Music, a small, for-profit school in St. Paul, alerted faculty and students in a pair of email messages that the school did not have enough cash to make payroll and is closing on Dec. 20.
New Zora Neale Hurston Book Is Coming This Spring
“Barracoon tells the story of the last known person to survive the transatlantic slave trade, a man named Cudjo Lewis. Many know that Hurston was an acclaimed fiction writer, but here it is her work as an anthropologist that shines. Hurston was able to sit down in the Black community of Plateau, Alabama, which was founded by Cudjo Lewis and other ex-slaves from the ship that brought them to America, and talk with the then 95-year-old Lewis about his life in 1931.”
Martin Ransohoff, 90, Producer Of Classic ’60s Sitcoms And Feature Films
Among the evergreen television series his company, Filmways Television, produced were Mister Ed, The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, Green Acres, and The Addams Family; the titles he produced for the big screen included Save the Tiger, Catch-22, The Cincinnati Kid (he fired Sam Peckinpah as director and replaced him with Norman Jewison), and The Americanization of Emily.