The National Institutes of Health’s Chamber Music Series is drawing to a close this weekend after 40 years of presenting the world’s best musicians in Washington, D.C. The series’s founder “chalks up the plunge to aging audiences, as well as the wider availability of high-end chamber music. Others view the series’s end more ominously.”
Author: sbergman
The Night James Brown Saved Boston
Riots broke out in cities around the US following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968. But in Boston, one of the most racially polarized American cities, things stayed at a tense simmer, thanks in large part to the impromptu efforts of singer James Brown.
UBS Moves Support From Verbier To Lucerne
“UBS, the giant Swiss bank, has withdrawn its support of the UBS Verbier Orchestra, an elite training ensemble that is based at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland and that has close ties to the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the Met’s music director, James Levine. The bank has decided to move its money to a rival Swiss festival in Lucerne, a higher-profile event that has a training academy — but no student orchestra — of its own.”
Beaux Arts, Pressler Calling It Quits (Sort Of)
Pianist Menachem Pressler has had one of the era’s most successful musical careers, and while, at 84, he’s not ready to quit, he’s finally begun to slow down his hectic schedule a bit. “Mr. Pressler and his much younger colleagues in the venerable Beaux Arts Trio, which he helped found as a junior partner in 1955, plan to disband” this summer.
Emory’s Prize Poetry Collection Goes On Display
A three-day poetry conference at Atlanta’s Emory University has “coincided with the first public exhibition of what many scholars believe to be the most important collection of English-language poetry in the world: the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library, which Emory acquired in 2004.”
A Landmark Comes Up Against Modern Living
Italy’s Appian Way, the ancient road connecting Rome to Brindisi, has fallen into disrepair, courtesy of vandals, congestion, “and, some of its guardians grumble, illegal development… These days some residents seem indifferent to the roadway’s archaeologically rich past.”
If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Lead ‘Em
One New York theatre critic has clearly had it with the city’s scene. “After years of private bitching and public grumbling about our nonprofit theaters’ toothless seasons, homogeneous production designs and timid, old-man marketing, I’ve finally found a person with the taste and courage to be the ideal artistic director of the 21st century: me.”
Garcia’s Fame Ready To Spread Beyond Spain
Spanish painter Antonio López GarcÃa is 72, and yet somehow is only just now having his first solo museum show in the US. “In Spain, he is the acclaimed realist who has a commission to paint the royal family. Here he’s virtually unknown.”
India Allows Pakistani Film To Open
“A critically acclaimed Pakistani film on Islam has been released across cinemas in India. It is the first Pakistani film to get a wide commercial release in India in over four decades… Officially, India and Pakistan have banned each other’s films since going to war in 1965.”
Hyperion Chief Jumping To HarperCollins
“Robert S. Miller, a veteran of the New York book world and the founder of Disney-owned Hyperion Books, is leaving that post to run HarperCollins’ new Internet-driven publishing division, HarperCollins announced today. He will begin his job next week at the London Book Fair and will answer directly to Jane Friedman, HarperCollins’ chief executive.”