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Centuries Of Music In A Single Work (Caged, Of Course)

A piece by John Cage is being performed in a German church. Don’t worry about catching the performance though. It will continue over the next six centuries. It’s “a version of a composition by John Cage called ‘As Slow as Possible.’ A group of musicians and town boosters has given the title a ridiculously extreme interpretation, by stretching the performance to 639 years.”

Greeks To Charge Curator True Over Antiquities Looting

Greek police say they will charge former Getty curator marion True of illegal possession of 29 Greek artifacts found in her Greek villa earlier this spring. “This shouldn’t come as a surprise. None of these items were registered with local archaeological authorities as the law requires.” True says the antiquities were there when she bought the house.

CBS Creates A Channel Online

CBS launches a new broadband channel. “The site, available on the CBS.com home page, is streaming three shows a day at first, at least one of them new each day. Material already shown will be archived and available for free to computer users. ‘We want our content to be all the places our viewers are — and they are certainly on the Internet’.”

Boston Globe Hires Three New Critics

“Jeremy Eichler, a classical music writer for The New York Times, will be the Globe’s new classical music critic. Joining the staff on Monday to cover pop music will be Sarah Rodman. She comes from the Boston Herald, where for the last six years she was a staff columnist covering pop music and entertainment. The Globe’s new theater critic will be staff writer Louise Kennedy. She has worked as assistant book editor, assistant Living/Arts editor, assistant magazine editor, food editor, home editor, and, since 2001, arts reporter.”

The Survey Says: American Museums Had A Good Year

“The New York-based Association of Art Museum Directors said this week that 73 percent of the 129 museums responding to its survey reported steady or increased attendance in 2005. That compared with 70 percent seeing such results in 2004. The survey also found that 84 percent of respondents said their total revenue had increased or was the same as in the previous year, up from 79 percent in 2004.”

Cirque Takes Over

“To judge from its own statistics, Cirque du Soleil has taken over the circus world. Drawing, like other major circuses, from the same international pool of small traveling circuses and circus schools, augmented by fresh talent from Eastern Europe and Asia, Cirque du Soleil has elevated the once marginal and innovative “new circus” experiments of Europe into an international brand name. The Cirque format has surpassed the older-fashioned, sawdust plus painted clowns plus animal acts of Barnum & Bailey, wedding instead the jugglers and acrobats and its own kind of clowns to formulaic fantasies.”

Univision Gains On Big 4

Univision, the American Spanish-language TV network says its earnings are up 21 percent over last year. “Univision has become a tough competitor to ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox and regularly beats one of these four English-language networks in prime-time. As the Hispanic population continues to grow in size, we are confident that advertisers will see that reaching Hispanics through Univision Television, radio, music and online assets will be a key to their success.”

The Good News About Classical Music

Nicholas Kenyon argues that far from dying, classical music is thriving. “The real problem for classical music is that no one expects it to change, because it is steeped in tradition and is too often associated exclusively with the past. Yet it changes continually, both in character and in content. New music, so often thought of as esoteric and unappealing, has never been more varied in style and substance than now.”