“Shoes pervade the London instalment of this year’s Beck’s Futures show, which opened at the ICA on Friday. Gallery-goers in Glasgow and Bristol, where the same shortlisted artists will soon be showing a different selection of works, may come away with a different impression. But in London, feet and shoes seem to be everywhere.”
Blog
Everyone Wants Guernica
Picasso’s “Guernica may denounce war, but Spaniards appear determined not to allow one of their most famous paintings any peace. Everybody in Spain, it sometimes seems, wants to get their hands on it. The latest claim comes from the Basque country.”
Rostropovich To Give Up Cello
Mstislav Rostropovich has told a German magazine that he will no longer perform in public on the cello. The renowned cellist/conductor, now aged 79, was quoted as saying that a Penderecki premiere he played in Vienna this January would be his last performance. “Rostropovich said that he would continue to maintain an active schedule as a conductor, noting that he was completely booked for the next two years.”
Poet Wants Guantanamo Work Returned
Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost says he wrote 25,000 lines of poetry while he was a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay. Now that he’s out, he wants it returned…
A Sick Little Musical (We’ll Make It Better)
They’re making musicals about everything these days. Next up? How about Britain’s national Health Service? Really: “Featuring such toe-tapping numbers as The Morning Song of the Poor Hard-Pressed GP and The Great Hospital Sweepstake, NHS The Musical! is described as a “living autopsy” by its director.”
What Illegal Downloads Cost The Big Music Biz?
A lot, says a new industry report. “The rise in illegal piracy cost the UK music industry £1.1 billion over the last three years, despite the fact that the number of Britons downloading illegally has fallen since last year. But the dent to the music industry coffers has increased largely because those downloading music illegally are the individuals expected to spend the most on music.”
Yo-Yo Ma Begs Congress To Loosen Visa Rules
Cellist Yo-Yo Ma made an appearance before a U.S. House committee this week to ask lawmakers to consider relaxing temporary visa requirements for foreign musicians wishing to perform in America. Meanwhile the State Department continued to defend its policy on visas in the face of media reports of unreasonable delays and inflated expense.
Memorializing Katrina, But With A Universal Touch
The first major work of classical music to commemorate the flooding of New Orleans gets its debut in Madison, Wisconsin this week. But composer Luna Pearl Woolf didn’t want her “Apres Moi, Les Deluge” for solo cello and a cappella choir to be simply a one-hit wonder that would be forgotten once the shock of Katrina abates. “Message pieces are awful and I won’t do them. This is an allegorical text. We tried to eliminate forms that are so specific that they would only apply to this one case. As you move from this one case and how we feel about it, the event becomes more universal and more worthy of being set to music and being listened to.”
Fake Sheik Sentenced For Faux Rembrandt
A man who admitted posing as a Saudi sheik as part of a scheme to sell a fake Rembrandt painting for $2.8 million, was sentenced Tuesday to 10 months in confinement in St. Louis.
Chicago – City Of Dance
“Chicago is fast becoming a ballet boomtown — a magnet for long-necked beauties with narrow, gently sloping shoulders. And with this weekend’s formal announcement that this fall the New York City Ballet will make its first visit to Chicago in more than 25 years, the city’s dance calendar has begun to rival its classical music lineup.”