“The number of organ students nationwide has fallen sharply since the 1950s, and many churches say they can’t find competent musicians to play the hymns, choral accompaniments and solo works that have been a staple of worship services for centuries.”
Blog
The Louvre From On High?
What will Atlanta’s High Museum deal with the Louvre to borrow artwork look like? Lee Rosenbaum asks the question: “How many of those loans will actually come from the Louvre’s A-List? The High is paying top dollar for the cachet of the French museum’s imprimatur.” But the museum could be sending lesser works by well-known names. “The proof will be in the seeing. But the proliferation of high-rent shows, whereby major museums beef up their budgets at the expense of other museums, seems like the wrong kind of fundraising.”
Music Minus One (21st Century Edition)
“DreamMusician.com hopes to entice musicians who want to play along to hits by artists like Smash Mouth, Tears For Fears, Rick James and others while pretending they’re actually filling in on a given part. The site, which launched earlier this month, sells song downloads for about $2 each and compilations of the same song with different instrumental parts removed starting at about $18.”
The Power Of Crowds
“Just as distributed computing projects like UC Berkeley’s SETI@home have tapped the unused processing power of millions of individual computers, so distributed labor networks are using the Internet to exploit the spare processing power of millions of human brains. The productive potential of millions of plugged-in enthusiasts is attracting the attention of old-line businesses, too. For the last decade or so, companies have been looking overseas, to India or China, for cheap labor. But now it doesn’t matter where the laborers are – they might be down the block, they might be in Indonesia – as long as they are connected to the network.”
Supersized Costs – Studio Pulls Plug On Expensive Comedy
Fox pulls the plug on filming a comedy that was to have cost $112 to make. “At an over-$100 million budget, the talent is making $60 million before the studio can recoup its costs. The economics on it make no sense.”
More Writing, Less Reading (What’s Wrong Here?)
“The creative writers in this country—those who have earned an MFA and those who haven’t—produce untold millions of poems, stories, novels, and essays. But for whom are they writing? Where is the readership to support this prodigious output? Certainly, bookstores and libraries prove that there are still readers out there. Yet Reading at Risk sounds the alarm that the practice of literary reading in America is in serious decline. How can it be that MFA programs in creative writing flourish in a country where literary reading does not?”
Is The Internet Really Remaking Indie Music?
Everyone’s talking about the internet’s impact on helping the careers of indie artists. But “while the notion of unsigned artists circumventing radio and television and “shaking the major record labels to their core” is a romantic one, whether it’s happening to the degree being portrayed in the media is another matter entirely. In fact, could it be the idea of the internet, rather than the internet itself, that is driving exposure of emerging artists?”
Israel Museum To Expand
The Israel Museum is to get a $50 million renovation and expansion. “The museum buildings, which sit on a 20 acre site, have grown from 5,000 to 50,000 sq. m since the museum opened in 1965. Plans are being drawn up to reorganise, expand and update the various museum buildings and create new buildings to improve entry, services and circulation for the visitors, which vary between 500,000 and one million a year.”
Troubled Dance Theatre Of Harlem Gets $1 Million From Ford
“The Ford Foundation grant will fund the DTH School and Dancing Through Barriers, its education and community outreach program. Over the next four years, the DTH School will develop and implement a strategic recruitment plan, augment its curriculum to offer more robust training and artistic experiences including guest faculty and choreographers for its students. It will also formulate a comprehensive K-12 curriculum for use in rendering its education activities and residencies in New York City and around the world.”
Zimbabwe Cracks Down On Playwright
Playwrights in Zimbabwe say they are being targeted by the government. “Nervous that the opposition Movement for Democratic Change is getting ready to launch a violent campaign to end his 26 years of rule, the head of state has targeted poets, playwrights, satirists – even nightclub stand up comedians – and branded them all as “enemies of the people.”