Argentine pianist Ingrid Fliter has been chosen the winner of the $300,000 Gilmore Artist Award. “Ms. Fliter was among about 450 pianists nominated in a poll of music professionals and was chosen from a final handful by six judges from the music world who stealthily heard her perform in Washington and Tokyo as well as on privately made live recordings.”
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Shostakovich The (choose only one) Visionary/Fraud
There may be no composer whose life and work divide critics more than Dmitri Shostakovich. Was he a courageous rebel working against the Stalinist regime from within, or a Communist stooge too fond of his privileged place in Soviet Russia to worry about the politics of it all? Does his music represent a visionary advancing of the traditions established by Russia’s 19th-century compositional luminaries, or is it all “undercomposed” and second-rate stuff? “It is extraordinary how vitriolic such discussions… become, both inside and outside Russia.”
How Documentarians Became Artists
Photographs celebrating “real life” – gritty, unadorned reality undisturbed by notions of art or beauty – are the hottest thing going these days. But are such snapshots of life really the type of thing that belongs in a gallery alongside more traditional genres? “In these unelitist times, most of us would now question the old distinction between art on the one hand and photography (and documentary film) on the other… We don’t usually look for sociological information from drawings and sculptures. But there are times of crisis when artists are commissioned to do their bit for the nation, and even before the war, in the early 1930s, Benjamin Britten, WH Auden and William Coldstream were all contributing to the documentary movement. Art was to be brought to the people, and the people into art.”
The Future Of The Written Word
“If Bill Gates has his way, those of us who love the tactile pleasures of reading should proceed into 2006 with a degree of caution. The way we read books, and the way they are distributed globally, is about to undergo radical transformation similar to changes in the way we acquire, distribute and consume music.” But with Google and Microsoft locked in competition to be the first to digitize all the printed words that have come before, and to transform the future of publishing itself, debate is raging over what is good for the marketplacem, and what is good for the consumer.
Oscar Loves The Crying Scenes
The Academy Awards are supposed to represent the last word in Hollywood quality, and to make a practice of honoring the best, not just the best-connected. But a quick glance through the best picture winners of the last two decades shows another side of Oscar. It would appear that Academy voters are absolute suckers for shameless tear-jerkers, and will always reward raw emotion over substance and relevance. It’s that preference for over-the-top melodrama that explains how Forrest Gump beat out Quiz Show, how Saving Private Ryan lost out to Shakespeare in Love, and it’s also the reason that such thought-provokig films as Syriana, Munich, and Good Night and Good Luck haven’t got a chance against Brokeback Mountain.
Using Art To Attract Celebrity, Cash, and Youth
A new generation of art enthusiasts is coming of age (as are their investment portfolios,) and museums are scrambling to find new ways to integrate the new blood into their existing mix. “All the major museums in New York sponsor junior groups,” which seem to exist mainly to throw lavish parties and attract celebrities and cash. “Junior museum boards were originally closed, invitation-only groups aimed at the children of established donors. Over the years, however… the boards have opened wider. Today the junior groups are open to anyone who can pay the annual dues (which range from $500 to $1,000), and foot the $150 to $200 needed to attend the galas. And each party is more opulent than the last.”
More Cash, Less Control For Scottish Arts Council
“Government funding for the arts in Scotland will be increased, it will be announced this week, although the figure looks set to fall significantly short of the extra £100m recommended by the Cultural Commission… Although negotiations are continuing this weekend, it now seems certain that the Scottish Arts Council will be stripped of responsibility for the national companies – Scottish Opera, Scottish Ballet, the National Theatre of Scotland, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Royal Scottish National Orchestra – and merged with Scottish Screen… In future, the five national companies will be funded directly from the Scottish Executive, although sources say they will be protected from any direct influence from civil servants.”
Ailing Sawallisch Cancels Concert Dates
Conductor Wolfgang Sawalisch is canceling concerts because of health concerns. “I cannot say if and when I will be strong enough to fly to America and to see you again. So I take the possibility now to thank you once again for the great collaboration in the past: The concerts in the Academy and in the new hall, the exciting travels to the most different parts of the world. The experiences remain always in my heart.”
Ma Appointed World Peace Envoy
UN Secretary General Kofi “Annan met with Ma on Thursday and confirmed the cellist would become a “peace envoy,” joining a list of other notables such as environmentalist Jane Goodall, actor Michael Douglas, basketball player Magic Johnson, jazz musician Wynton Marsalis, opera singer Luciano Pavarotti and Nobel laureate Elie Weisel.”
Leading From The West
Whether New York is really losing its primacy as the undisputed American center of the arts is quite debatable. But it is becoming increasingly clear that the heart of the American orchestral organism is beating strongly 3,000 miles southwest of the Big Apple. The Los Angeles Philharmonic has achieved that rarest of confluences in recent years – a first-rate ensemble, a finely tuned promotional operation, a top-flight music director, and an outstanding and inviting concert hall. Perhaps more importantly, the LA Phil’s success may provide a blueprint for America’s more staid and stagnant orchestras (one of which resides in New York) to overhaul their own product.