“Heated verbal exchanges erupted yesterday in the closing stages of the Da Vinci Code copyright court case, in which two historians are accusing author Dan Brown of lifting their research in his bestseller.”
Blog
On The Fringes Of Success
There was a time when the only real gain you could achieve by being included in the New York Fringe Festival was the satisfaction of a job well done, and hopefully, a few tepid reviews. But ever since Urinetown leaped from the Fringe to Broadway back in 1999, the festival has become a whole new ball game, with any number of people keeping score.
The New Great American Symphony?
It’s John Adams’ “Naive and Sentimental Music” (note it doesn’t say “symphony” in the title). “This three-movement, 45-minute ’emphatically tonal’ piece can’t escape its own nature though, though. ‘It sounds like a symphony and it behaves like one, so it probably is,’ admits Adams. Nor can its modest author escape the accolades that have followed his work.”
Toscanini’s Comeback
Arturo Toscanini was already in his eighties when NBC began a seven-year series of live telecasts of the maestro and his NBC Symphony Orchestra. “This was the first major attempt to bring symphonic music to television; the Leonard Bernstein ‘Young People’s Concerts’ began in the late ’50s. Now virtually all of Toscanini’s television work has been reissued on five DVDs by the enterprising Testament label, and it provides a terrific answer to that perpetual question: ‘What is it that a conductor does, exactly?'”
The Palace Restoration No One Wanted
Yemen’s Amiriya Palace was built 400 years ago, but abandoned only 13 years later. For centuries it was ignored and abused until an archaeologist came along in the 1980s and insisted it be restored. It was the restoration no one wanted, but as the decades went on and the work continued, a real treasure emerged…
Decades Into The Minimalism Thing…
The Los Angeles Philharmonic mounts the first retrospective survey of Minimalism by a major orchestra. Minimalism now seems old hat, but back in the late 60s, writes Mark Swed, it was something to capture the imagination…
Boston’s First New Museum In 100 Years?
Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art is building its new $51 million home, the “first new art museum to be built in Boston in nearly 100 years. Designed by Diller Scofidio & Renfro, the 65,000-square-foot building on the waterfront will have three times the exhibition space of the institute’s current building.”
“Corrie” Goes On In Seattle
A play about peace activist Rachel Corrie might be too hot for New York Theatre Workshop, but a version of Corrie’s life is playing at a small theatre in Seattle…
No Israeli Dance For Dance Europe?
A writer proposes writing about an up and coming dance company for Dance Europe magazine, but says she is told that for political reasons the publication doesn’t review Israeli artists…
Flying Solo (And Blind)
Why do the parts for classical musicians contain only the individual’s part and not those for other instruments? “Imagine being an actor and being given a copy of a script that only contained your lines. Being an effective ensemble requires a fundamental understanding of what everyone else is doing in addition to what you’re doing. In fact, in that sense, ensembles in theatre, dance, and music are art’s most poignant metaphor for how individuals coexist in a society.”