A Benedictine monk whose ceramics sell for more than $60,000 apiece is being memorialized through a new foundation in Boston. “The Newbury Street gallery that owns the largest collection of [Brother Thomas Bezanson’s] work – $15 million worth – is joining with the Boston Foundation, which distributes millions of dollars in grants each year, to use proceeds from the sale of his ceramics to create a fund that would support struggling artists in Boston.”
Author: sbergman
Does The Phil Really Want To Play Pyongyang?
“New York Philharmonic officials were returning yesterday from an exploratory trip to North Korea with glowing reports of concert possibilities in the capital, Pyongyang, but they faced the potentially difficult task of selling the idea to the players… Orchestra management calls the visit purely musical and apolitical, but Korea experts say a concert in Pyongyang by a major American orchestra would be a publicity coup for North Korea.”
Looking For An Excuse To Stop Practicing?
Two British violinists were threatened with the confiscation of their instruments by a town council responding to a neighbor’s complaint about their practicing. “Controversy over the case caused a furious reaction in the town hall,” and despite attempts by the council to backtrack, the couple intends to move out of their flat.
Levelling The Playing Field
A new program offering instruments and music lessons to inner-city kids who can’t afford either launches this month in Ottawa. Teachers volunteering their services for the program include graduate students, professional teachers, and even members of the National Arts Centre Orchestra. The program’s founder conceived the idea after hearing about Venezuela’s wildly successful youth music initiative, El Sistema.
Border Battle Breaks Out Over German Antiquities
An impressive collection of antiquities and art “in the vaults of the Jagiellonian Library, including original music manuscripts from Bach, Beethoven and Mozart, have become the subject of a bitter diplomatic debate between Poland and Germany. The Germans claim these items — hidden here during World War II — are legally and morally part of their national patrimony and should be returned. Poland insists Germany forfeited any legal and moral claim to the collection long ago.”
Quietly, A Big Deal Gets Done In Minneapolis
Compared to some other orchestral contract negotiations this fall, the talks at the Minnesota Orchestra didn’t make many headlines. But behind the scenes, both musicians and management went in knowing exactly what they had to get out of a new deal, and both profess to have gotten it. The musicians will see an impressive 26% raise over the life of the five-year deal, and the orchestra will be assured that health care costs will not rise more than 10% a year without musicians agreeing to shoulder some of the increase.
It’s Probably Alma
Graffiti taggers are a problem in cities the world over, scrawling their nom de vandal on whatever surface they can find. But in Toronto, a new tagger is getting some shocked attention from the city’s musicians. The name popping up on bridges and roadside barriers: Gustav Mahler.
Stagehands Schedule Strike Vote
“With contract negotiations between producers and stagehands at a standstill, the union representing almost all of the stagehands on Broadway yesterday scheduled a strike vote for Oct. 21… Local One has never called a strike on Broadway, and a strike vote does not necessarily lead to a strike. The union decided to call a vote because producers have been contemplating a plan to impose the terms of a new contract on the stagehands.”
Art That Refuses To Live In Fear
Picasso’s Guernica is on display in Spain, where the painting’s anti-war message stands in stark contrast to the terrorist attacks endured regularly by Spaniards. Guernicaitself has been the target of violence over the years, to the extent that it used to be displayed only under heavy glass. These days, it hangs unprotected, and Michael Kimmelman says that public trust is what makes art, and the museums that house it, so uniquely human.
The Making Of A Nobel Writer
“In Europe, the term ‘Nobelisable’ is used freely to mean a writer who could perfectly well win the Nobel prize. Every small country has one – sometimes two. Writers are often identified as being Nobelisable for similar reasons. The Nobel prize carries an aura of the writer’s life as a public one; of collective identity voiced, shaped or advocated by a visionary, perhaps even brave, individual. The writer as unacknowledged legislator, maybe, but nevertheless visibly engaged with their own society. There is something of this aura behind suggestions that the decision-making of the Nobel committee is ‘politicised’. But maybe these suggestions have it back to front.”