Buffalo artists are protesting a county funding plan that would cut loose one of the city’s cultural biggies – the Studio Arena Theater. “The all-volunteer county Cultural Resources Advisory Board recently came out with that surprise decision. The plan offered by the committee – which after due deliberation makes recommendations on how much and who gets funds the county sets aside for cultural organizations – is for the $3.5 million tucked away for “the culturals” to be distributed among five prime institutions, instead of six that included Studio, which was the case in 2005.”
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New York’s Signature Dance Workshop Turns 40
“Dance Theater Workshop is hardly the only important center for dance in New York City – a town that, despite complaints about rents and impoverishment and the diaspora to the outer boroughs and challenges from other world cities, seems actually to be in the midst of a bustling renaissance of creative excitement. But if not alone, the workshop has become increasingly important… Week in and week out, Dance Theater Workshop has become an increasingly reliable brand name for what is new and exciting in dance today.”
Medals of Arts to Marsalis, DePriest, Duvall
“President Bush will honor authors, musicians and historians from New York and elsewhere on Thursday with the National Medal of Arts and the National Humanities Medal. In an Oval Office ceremony with his wife, Bush will present the Medal of Arts to author Louis Auchincloss of New York, symphony orchestra conductor James DePriest of Portland, Ore., jazz musician Paquito D’Rivera of Bergen, N.J., actor Robert Duvall of Plains, Va., arts advocate Leonard Garment of New York and film animator and artist Ollie Johnston of La Canada, Calif. Also to receive Medals of Arts are jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis of New York, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and dancer and choreographer Tina Ramirez of New York. Singer and actress Dolly Parton will receive the medal at a later date.”
Poet Nadia Anjuman Murdered
A prominent Afghan poet has apparently been beaten to death by her husband in what is known in Afghanistan as an “honor killing.” The United Nations has condemned the murder of Nadia Anjuman, and the poet’s husband and mother have both been arrested in the case. While not technically legal, “honor killings,” in which women are beaten to death by male relatives to save the family from some imagined disgrace, are still widely accepted in many parts of Afghanistan.
Rehabilitating The Hated Car Park
“Car parks are architectural scum, lower down architecture’s evolutionary scale than Travelodges. If your nearest [parking garage] was demolished you’d no more bat an eyelid than if you’d stood on a cockroach… Sounds like just the job for Rem Koolhaas, who likes nothing better than a bit of Modernist dystopia to turn on its head. In theory, with all those spirals, all that concrete, a car park should be a gift for an architect. Koolhaas has been busy regenerating Almere, a faded Dutch Alphaville from the 1950s, though not for the trim, cappuccino-sipping bike riders that give most modern urban planners wet dreams. Koolhaas is rebuilding his new new town around that great modern evil: the car.”
Art Market Back On The Upswing
“Over the past two decades, the Impressionist and modern art market has seen demand reach dizzying heights and then collapse, and supply fluctuate from feast to famine. But last week it had a solid, confident air as buyers spent almost £165 million at Christie’s and Sotheby’s main New York sales. Helped by a bumper crop of estate sales and the controversial decision of several American museums to sell works to fund new purchases, there was plenty to tempt buyers, who reacted enthusiastically.”
Politician vs. History vs. Profundity
When the UK’s new culture minister approached the “comments board” for this year’s Turner Prize finalists, he was surely remembering the uproar that ensued three years ago, when then-minister Kim Howells scrawled a profane condemnation of the prize and its organizers, sparking a general uproar (and quite a bit of muttered support from a public that had grown to loathe the conceptual art-heavy Turner.) There can be no question that current minister David Lammy did not repeat Howells’ mistake. But in his caution, he may have forgotten to say anything at all.
Bergen Wins 2005 Giller Prize
David Bergen beat out four other finalists Tuesday night to take home the 2005 Giller Prize, Canada’s preeminent award for fiction. Bergen’s novel, The Time In-Between, finished ahead of books by Joan Barfoot, Camilla Gibb, Lisa Moore, and Edeet Ravel in the lavish award ceremony broadcast across Canada. Bergen receives CAN$40,000 in prize money.
Opera’s Little Label That Could (And Does)
In an age when classical recording on the major labels is in the dumps, smaller labels are increasingly finding a niche and turning out high-quality product. But is such a thing really possible when we’re talking about opera recordings, the most mind-bogglingly complex of all studio recording enterprises? Apparently, it is. “At a time when major record labels have all but quit making full-length opera recordings, [a small, independent label called] Opera Rara has never been busier, resurrecting forgotten works and putting them on disc to exacting musical and technical standards. Small but persistent, the company is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year.”
Concerns Raised Over One Of Opera’s Brightest Lights
Mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson is one of the sought-after stars of the classical music world, and her appearance on a concert program is a sure audience draw. But over the last year, Lieberson has become a chronic no-show, canceling engagements at the Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, and the San Francisco Opera. Officially, Lieberson’s representatives say that she is suffering from a “lower back injury,” but details have been few, and speculation is rampant that the cancer which attacked the singer five years ago may have returned.