“Arts and cultural organizations in Michigan are reeling from a moratorium on state grant expenditures issued this week by Gov. Jennifer Granholm to deal with the state budget crisis. The moratorium on all state grants, which takes effect on Wednesday, will freeze payments to arts and cultural organizations for the remainder of the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.”
Author: sbergman
Toronto Turnaround
A scant five years ago, the Toronto Symphony was on the verge of collapse, running up massive deficits and laboring to play quality concerts in a substandard hall. But thanks to an acoustical revamp, a dynamic new music director, a cut-price ticket program for young adults, and a tireless board chair with a passion for fundraising, the TSO is back on track and thriving in Canada’s largest city.
Cleveland Looks To Demolish Tower
Cleveland lawmakers are set to approve the demolition of a 29-story office tower designed by Modernist architect Marcel Breuer in the city’s downtown. Steven Litt says the plan, which includes replacing the tower with a new building, would be a major architectural loss, and overly costly besides.
Cultural Literacy Shows Signs Of Life In Canada
“Canadians are more likely to read a book than attend a movie, and they’re visiting art galleries and historic sites more,” according to a new study. “Intriguingly, attendance at classical-music concerts seems [also] to be trending upward.”
Portugese Billionaire Goes On Art Shopping Spree
“The Portuguese billionaire José Berardo has bought eight modern and contemporary sculptures by international artists which he plans to put on show in front of the Portuguese parliament in Lisbon next month.”
Are We Outgrowing The City?
“San Francisco is in the midst of another of its periodic building booms. In the past few years, a spate of ugly office/residential towers have sprouted south of the main drag, Market Street, and further aesthetic atrocities are in the pipeline.” But what’s the point, with technology fast making it unnecessary for workers to congregate in urban centers as they once did? “Americans have never liked big cities very much and have devoted enormous energy over the years trying to escape them. With today’s technology, escape is closer at hand than it’s ever been.”
Hemingway-Dietrich Correspondence To Go Public
“Ernest Hemingway and Marlene Dietrich met while traveling across the Atlantic on the Ile de France in 1934. Their friendship lasted until the Nobel Prize-winning author’s death in 1961. Thursday the John F. Kennedy Library is releasing 30 letters Hemingway wrote to the legendary actress and singer between 1949 and 1959.”
Wait, That Doesn’t Go There
New York’s Metropolitan Museum has long prized its 2,600-year-old Etruscan chariot, acquired in 1903 after an Italian farmer unearthed it. But in recent years, scholars began to suspect that the chariot had been assembled incorrectly. Now, after a five-year restoration project, the chariot has been put together the right way, thanks to an Italian archaeologist who spotted the problem on a 1989 trip to New York.
And Just In Case This Music Thing Doesn’t Work Out…
“In most areas of higher education, entrepreneurship has long lost its stigma as a career path for those without one. But at the nation’s top music conservatories that stigma is still very much alive, despite the fact that the “traditional” career path for classically trained musicians–one that ends with steady employment in a symphony orchestra–is difficult.” But some schools are slowly starting to embrace the idea that a musical education can be supplemented with a practical back-up business plan.
Berlin Clings To Its Culture
When it comes to new music, Berlin may be the global capital of innovation, or at least the city most willing to give the stuff a chance, and to generously fund its programming and promotion. “This isn’t just the mentality of a high-spending social democratic nation that invests in high culture, though it’s partly that. It is also a shrewd realisation that, lacking any industrial base, culture is Berlin’s only real calling card. This is why, despite the city’s dire financial plight, spending on the arts hasn’t suffered as much as everybody feared.”