One of Northern Ireland’s largest orchestras may have to begin its next season without the use of its concert hall, and orchestra officials are furious that they weren’t consulted before the closure of Ulster’s Waterfront Hall was announced. The Ulster Orchestra “had made provisional booking for four concerts during this period, including the important opening concert of the 2007-2008 season and… ‘had been led to believe’ that the Waterfront would be closed during the quiet season from June-August, and not later on.”
Blog
DaVinci’s Real Scandal? The Book Stinks.
If the Catholic Church really wanted to expose the controversy behind The DaVinci Code, says Dominic Papatola, they could leave all the religious babble behind, and just point out what a truly awful read it is. “The book seems to be written at about a sixth-grade readability level. The plot advances in a series of enough improbable ‘a-ha!’ moments to burn through a couple of grosses of light bulbs. And the galloping, thinly strung conspiracy theory makes your typical Kennedy assassination theorist look scholarly by comparison…”
The Best Work Of Fiction In The Past 25 Years?
“Early this year, the New York Times Book Review’s editor, Sam Tanenhaus, sent out a short letter to a couple of hundred prominent writers, critics, editors and other literary sages, asking them to please identify “the single best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years.” The results – in some respects quite surprising, in others not at all – provide a rich, if partial and unscientific, picture of the state of American literature, a kind of composite self-portrait as interesting perhaps for its blind spots and distortions as for its details.”
An Architect Revered (If Not Well-Known)
“Although Tadao Ando is not yet a household name in England (a public square in Manchester is his only UK project to date), in his own country, and indeed throughout the ranks of his profession, this former boxer is revered. His studio gives a clue as to why.”
Levine To Return
James Levine “is returning to the podium after an unprecedented four-month hiatus. The Boston Symphony Orchestra’s music director fell onstage in Symphony Hall at the end of a concert in March, sustaining a rotator-cuff injury to his right shoulder that required surgery.” But the conductor will emerge this summer at Tanglewood…
Japanese Music Apart From The World
Japanese traditional music isn’t much of a player in the international Woorld Music scene. “There are no travelling stars of the ancient music of the Imperial Court known as gagaku, no sell-out albums by players of the sighing bamboo flute called the shakuhachi. The music doesn’t lend itself to “fusion”; you couldn’t really imagine the deep meditative twanging of the koto or zither put against a Latin beat.”
Gioia: The NEA’s Back
National Endowment for the Arts chairman Dana Gioia says the agency has left its sometimes controversial past behind. “Some of artists the NEA supported in the late 1980s and 1990s prompted conservatives to try to destroy the agency. Its detractors argued it was funding art that was obscene and offensive. Its budget was cut by 40 percent. Today, it is far less controversial and there is little public criticism of its offerings, which include Shakespeare, poetry and opera.”
de Montebello – $3 Million For Turning 70
Philippe de Montebello turned 70 this week, but the milestone was more than just another birthday. It means that Mr. de Montebello, who has led the Met as its director for nearly 29 years, will now be eligible for $3.3 million under a retention agreement with the museum.
Classical Music Jumps On the Digital Bandwagon
“Three years ago it seemed that classical music producers did not care about digital downloading. Well, that impression was wrong. Classical music, as many have noted recently, is doing very well on the Internet: a bigger proportion of sales on iTunes than in conventional retail stores. The classical establishment is now moving with uncharacteristic speed to get onto this bandwagon.”
Podcasting The Museum Experience
“In the spring of 2005, when a professor and a group of students at Marymount Manhattan College made waves by creating their own, unauthorized MP3 audio tour for the Museum of Modern Art, few art institutions were even exploring the idea of podcasting as an alternative to official audio tours, created by companies like Acoustiguide and Antenna Audio. But in the short time since then, museum podcasts — both do-it-yourself versions and those created by museums themselves — have taken off, changing the look and feel of audio tours.”