How do you bring classical music to a younger generation unlikely to meet it on its own terms? Combine it with something they already love – something like, oh, maybe… high fashion runway shows? “Our purpose is to expose these top-class artists to a new group of people who are more downtown — trendsetters, fashion people… Classical music is not stuffy. [I]t just needs a different setting.”
Author: sbergman
Ordway Taps Former LA Phil COO
St. Paul’s Ordway Center for the Performing Arts has tapped a native Californian with longstanding ties to Minnesota to be its new chief executive. “Patricia Mitchell’s first job out of college was at the [Minneapolis-based] Guthrie Theater,” and she went on to head opera companies in LA and San Francisco, and to serve as COO of the LA Philharmonic. In St. Paul, she will take over a venue with a long history of difficult relations with its resident companies.
SPAC Sales Jump 40%
It’s been a rough few years for upstate New York’s Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC), which has seen attendance drop off at its featured series with the Philadelphia Orchestra and New York City Ballet. But now comes news that preseason sales for this summer’s classical and dance programming at SPAC are up a whopping 40%!
HK Conductor Driven Out By Pollution
There’s been a lot of talk in recent years about the importance of an orchestra’s music director living in the same city as his orchestra. So it can’t be welcome news for the Hong Kong Philharmonic that music director Edo deWaart is moving his family out of the city, and back to his wife’s family home in Wisconsin. The major reason for the move: Hong Kong’s notorious air pollution is sickening deWaart’s children.
IU Snags Alum Bell For Teaching Position
Star violinist Joshua Bell is headed back to Bloomington. Indiana University, Bell’s alma mater, has hired him as “senior lecturer” beginning with the 2008-09 school year. Bell will join a prestigious faculty that has historically included some of America’s greatest instrumental performers. He will not teach full-time, and plans to maintain his busy touring schedule.
Bell Named To Head Museum Association
“The American Association of Museums has selected [Ford Watson] Bell, 57, as its new president, marking its first change of leadership in 20 years.” Bell has a long history with museums and other non-profits in Minnesota, where he also mounted an unsuccessful campaign for U.S. Senate in 2006.
Sponsors Pressured Over Burns War Doc
“Latino advocacy organizations upset about filmmaker Ken Burns’s forthcoming PBS documentary on World War II have stepped up their campaign against the film, pressuring two corporate sponsors to remove their support.”
Leila’s Choice
Violinist Leila Josefowicz is undeniably beautiful, a fact which should have been nothing but a help to her career in an age when sex is used to sell even classical music. But Josefowicz never wanted any part of the pouting sex kitten persona that so many other young female violinists have embraced in recent years, and she believes that her determination to keep her audience’s minds on the music has helped her reputation of a serious performer and champion of new music.
Brooklyn Cultural District In Jeopardy
Eight months ago, Brooklyn officials unveiled ambitious plans for a new cultural district, including an impressive glass arts library designed by architect Enrique Norton. Now, the project is foundering, and the library may never be built, thanks in large part to a revolving-door leadership at the borough’s library system that failed to generate any funding for the new building.
An Expensive Rivalry
“This spring auction houses are touting stunning images by masters like Rothko and Warhol, Bacon and de Kooning. Price estimates are equally stunning, reflecting the fight for market share between the archrivals Sotheby’s and Christie’s. Their competition has never been deadlier, riskier or more expensive.”