Amazingly, as an increasingly brutal civil war decimates Iraq’s capital city, the Baghdad Symphony is still performing regularly. But even the orchestra, which has been held up many times as a symbol of hope for a broken country, has been sustaining losses. One musician has been killed in sectarian violence, and many others “have received death threats, must practice in semi-secrecy and don’t dare show their faces to our television cameras.” And just to add insult to injury, American and Iraqi soldiers recently raided the home of one of the BSO’s violinists, and smashed his 19th-century violin to pieces.
Author: sbergman
Ross’s Roadie
New Yorker music critic Alex Ross is off on the kind of road trip usually favored by baseball nuts, only with orchestras. If all goes well, he’ll see concerts by the resident symphonies of Indianapolis, Nashville, and Birmingham within a single 36-hour period.
Disney Gives Orlando PAC A Big Boost
Orlando, Florida’s Disney World theme park is donating $12.5m towards a new performing arts center in the city’s downtown. “The 1,800-seat acoustic hall inside the arts center will be named for the entertainment giant… Proponents of the performing-arts center have collected $67 million in pledges from various community organizations and individual donors since last fall.”
Cannes As Huckster Heaven
Cannes may be a festival of art and culture, but it is first and foremost a marketing flak’s paradise, loaded down with movie people trying desperately to sell their latest opus. How else to explain why Jerry Seinfeld dressed up in a bee costume and jumped off a roof this week?
Warhol Museum Loving All The Attention
This week’s record sale prices for Andy Warhol paintings may be good news for a Pittsburgh museum devoted to the artist. “Already an internationally known commodity, Warhol’s art is getting increasing attention from Asian art collectors and museum visitors attending shows the museum tours there.”
CRTC To Cease Ad Regulation
“For decades, the amount of advertising on Canadian television has been set in Ottawa. Now the decision will be left up to the networks – and how much their viewers are willing to stomach. Canada’s broadcast regulator announced Thursday that it is getting out of the business of regulating how many ad minutes broadcasters can air each hour.”
The Art Of Storytelling, Now On Tour
A national tour by the Moth, a well-known storytellers collective, is drawing fans of literature and storytelling to venues across the US. “While raconteurs run the gamut – from singer Moby to an astronaut – the Moth relies heavily on writers, who make up about 70 percent of its performers.”
No Good Guys In The Music Piracy Fight
The battle over music piracy and illegal downloading has been going on for years now, but it’s sort of difficult for an independent observer to whip up any sort of real sympathy for anyone involved in the debate. The people downloading free songs are thieves (yes, they are,) the recording industry trying to stop them is made up of a bunch of greedy corporate bullies, and everyone just seems to be looking out for their own wallet.
Collectors Continue To Throw Money Around
Records continue to fall at New York’s spring art auctions. “Three sculptures — one fashioned from a dozen African masks, a dead deer cast in bronze, and a ball of painted and chromium-plated steel mangled as if hit by a truck — by some of today’s most popular artists brought record prices last night at Phillips de Pury & Company.” But the real star of the night was yet another Warhol – one of the artist’s soup can paintings went for $3m.
Embrace Your Mediocrity
Amateur orchestras are everywhere, fed and cared for by groups of musicians whose commitment to music is matched only by their inability to play it at anything approaching a professional level. So why not embrace the half-baked quality of performance? Scotland’s Really Terrible Orchestra (yes, that’s really its name) has done exactly that: “the RTO website proudly states that the main ethos of the orchestra is a commitment to lowering standards wherever possible.”