“About one month after reports began to surface that Amazon was developing a pay-per-view program for reading books online, the company unveiled Amazon Pages, a program that will let consumers view parts of a book online for a fee. Amazon provided no details on how it will price the service and no major publishers have yet agreed to be part of the program. In a second initiative, the e-tailer announced Amazon Upgrade, which will allow customers who buy a print book to also buy access to the work online. For its part, Random has put its stake in the ground about how it expects to be compensated for books that are viewed online.”
Blog
Scottish Jazz Thriving
Interest in jazz is soaring in Scotland. “What Scotland is doing is developing a very strong scene which has its own identity. A lot of people are fusing or mixing jazz with a Scottish idiom. Colin Steele is taking folk music and overlaying it with a Chet Baker feel but the result is a distinctive sound coming from, influenced and coloured by Scotland. There is very definitely a recognisable Scottish jazz influence now.”
Mackerras At 80
Charles Mackerras is turning 80, and he’s being celebrated. “In some respects the deification of Mackerras is a bit silly. Once a conductor reaches a certain age no one will say a word against him – even though he is palpably the same man who was criticised earlier in his career and is still capable of the occasional dud performance. Age somehow confers the mantle of genius. That says something about the conductor’s role: orchestras want a father figure. They will put up with irascibility and a demanding nature in a way they wouldn’t have done from the same person when he was younger. But Mackerras’s public standing has never been higher.”
Indiana Jones Is Out
Italy’s aggressive push to make claims on art it says was looted has American museums anxious. “The bad old days of Indiana Jones-style museum acquisition no longer fly. Countries have laws regarding the exportation of artwork, and what’s legal in one country may not be in another. And even if it’s legal, it may not be ethical. Many in the art world say the media blitz surrounding the Italian charges makes this a defining moment.”
Vienna Phil’s Woman Problem
It’s been eight years since the Vienna Philharmonic let its first woman musician into the ranks. So has the orchestra’s integration proceeded? Not quite…
UK’s Opera Hotbed? Look North
“A new study shows the north of England’s love of the performing arts has surpassed that in the South. Those in the North-west are now three times more likely to attend an opera than those in the South-east, according to the figures. Nearly one in 10 in the North-west named opera as their favourite form of theatrical production, and those in the North-east joined the chorus of approval. Only 3 per cent of those in the South-east spoke of opera as their favoured form of entertainment, despite having two professional houses on their doorstep.”
Redoing The Getty Villa
“The $275-million Getty Villa project stands as Machado and Silvetti’s most significant design, centering on the 64-acre property just above Pacific Coast Highway where oil billionaire J. Paul Getty built a loose replica of a Roman country house. The mock villa by the architecture firm Langdon & Wilson was dismissed by some critics as a gaudy concoction when it opened to the public in 1974. ‘This folly of Getty, how do you take that building? We could have taken it with irony; we could have taken it with aggression. A lot of architect friends of ours recommended both. We took it very seriously, and I think we made it a better building’.”
A Literary Superstar, Primed For A Fall
“With his pinched face and shambling gait, he is, to say the least, an incongruous figure; he looks more like a local wino than a world-famous man of letters. But [Michel] Houellebecq, 47, is the nearest thing to a literary superstar France has produced in recent years. His books have been translated into 36 languages and recent film deals have made him a multi-millionaire… [But in France,] he is often depicted as a calculating and manipulative operator who courts controversy to boost sales. This is also the argument of two recent biographies of Houellebecq.”
Searching For The Giller Algorithm
Canada’s Giller Prize will be awarded on Tuesday, which means the window for guessing the winner is closing quickly. But handicapping the Giller has always been tricky, and this year, even picking a frontrunner is a struggle. “What drives the Gillers? According to Calgary novelist Aritha van Herk, it’s ‘a weird mixture of circumstance, accident, the chemistry of jury members and the books published, what the publishers chose to submit, and the publishers who have the money to pay the entrance fee. There must be a math equation for that.'”
Minnesota’s Orchestra Of Conductors
This season three players in the Minnesota Orchestra are sharing assistant-conducting duties. “It’s tough because you’re up there for one week, then you’re right back where you were among your colleagues. So I think you just have to keep your eye on the prize, which is getting the program done.”