Daniel Barenboim leaves the directorship of the Chicago Symphony. Alex Ross likes what the orchestra has accomplished under a conductor he had some questions about ten years ago. “Ultimately, Barenboim is a fiery traditionalist, who can revitalize the most familiar scores.”
Blog
How The New York Review Of Books Came Into The World
“When The New York Review of Books made its début–Volume 1, No. 1, dated February 1, 1963, appeared in the midst of a four-month-long printers’ strike at the Times–the idea for an intellectually vigorous books magazine was so perfectly cooked, and its founding editors, Barbara Epstein and Robert Silvers, so skilled and connected, that an extended family of friends and sympathizers rushed to fill the chairs at a vast table of contents.”
Group Protests Loss Of Texas Classical Music Station
Texas classical radio station KTPB has been sold to a Christian broadcaster. So classical music will go off the air, but not without a fight. “Just because we live out here in the middle of nowhere doesn’t mean we have to be a cultural void. This radio station has reached people who have no other access to the arts. Meanwhile, three other Christian music stations lie just to the north on the FM dial.”
The New Jamaican Literature
“The literature of Jamaica, which has a population of about 2.5 million and a relatively small publishing industry, has existed as much off the island as on it until now. Traditionally Jamaican literature has been grounded in folklore and rural byways, or has consisted of chronicles of colonialism and of the island’s violent political conflicts.”
Southwest Museum’s Makeover – A “Highjacking”?
The Southwest Museum is going through a major overhaul, redefining itself. “Some of the museum’s neighbors, however, say it’s more like a hijacking than a redefinition. Denouncing ‘cultural piracy,’ the Friends of the Southwest Museum coalition contend that the people behind the move are dodging ‘a moral responsibility to maintain and revitalize’ the institution’s original location.
Colombian Town Rebuffs Name Change
Nobel writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s home town has rejected a proposal to rename itself. “The town’s mayor proposed renaming Aracataca after Macondo, the fictional setting for the writer’s most famous work, One Hundred Years of Solitude. Mayor Pedro Sanchez hoped the change would bring more tourists to the town. More than 90% of votes cast were in favour of the change, but only half the necessary 7,400 people went to vote.”
Conducting Left-Overs
The Saratoga Performing Arts Center unveiled a new logo with a picture of a left-handed conductor. Nothing unusual about that. Except… how many left-handed conductors are there?
An Abiding Interest In Whistler’s Mother
“Whistler’s Mother is one of the world’s most famous paintings… Yet in the recent edition of a prominent art history textbook, ‘Whistler’s Mother’ was omitted for the first time.”
Museums – Priced Out Of Collecting?
“Museums and galleries are facing a crisis of acquisition. As the art market booms, it becomes increasingly obvious that we have pitifully meagre resources with which to buy works of art to add to, and keep up to date, our museum collections. How on earth can we increase our collections if works of art cost so much? How can we find new sources of funding?”
Portaits (But No Pictures, Please)
Washington DC’s National Portrait Gallery is holding a competition. But it has some problems… “Maybe the worst move of all was to limit the contest to the old-fashioned arts of painting and sculpture. If you’re simply looking for the best imaginable portrait art, why rule out all the photographic media that artists love to use these days? Some of the best artworks of recent years have been pictures of people, done in film and video and photography, by world-famous artists.”