There has been much discussion lately about the trend of museums selling off their art to balance the budget. But museums aren’t the only ones divesting themselves of great works: Alan Artner points out that private collectors do it all the time, and the effect on a city’s artistic reputation can be drastically changed by such actions. “In the past it was thought that artworks collected in a city should stay in the city, for in a sense, they belonged to it. People rich enough to have significant collections made their money in particular cities and leaving art to them was a way of giving something back.” But beginning in the 1980s, when art really became a financial investment as well as an aesthetic one, this view began to change.
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Vanity Amid The Calligraphy
Illuminated manuscripts – those ornately decorated pages of calligraphic words that are meant more to be admired than read – were more than just a way to honor profound texts with high art. In fact, “[they] functioned a little the way today’s society pages do: they advertised the status of movers and shakers while at the same time they made them seem noble and generous. The manuscripts followed a basic formula: the more dazzling the word and image, the more prominent the church patron. Not content to be anonymous donors, people who commissioned such manuscripts even had their own likenesses incorporated into scenes along with their coats of arms.”
Rockettes High-Step Into Pittsburgh
Add Pittsburgh to the list of cities welcoming the Rockettes to town for the holidays. And as usual, the arrival of the touring Radio City show is being greeted by both enthusiasm and trepidation. On the plus side, the show could pump as much as $25 million a year into Pittsburgh’s hospitality industry. But for local arts groups, the Rockettes represent a serious threat to their own holiday-themed programs, and thus to their overall bottom lines.
Back To The Future In Birmingham?
Conductor Paul Polivnick had a good run as music director of the Alabama Symphony in the late 1980s, and even appeared to be making a stab at raising the orchestra from a little-known regional band to a big-budget ensemble that could have broken into the second tier of American orchestras. But when the ASO went bankrupt in 1993, the dream of bigger things for Birmingham’s symphony died, and Polivnick moved on. Now, with the ASO back in business (it reincorporated in 1997) and in need of a new music director, Polivnick is back in town to guest conduct his old musicians, and there is much speculation that he and the orchestra would like very much to pick up where they left off more than a decade ago.
Are Orchestras Losing The PR Game? Are They Even Playing?
The Oregon Symphony is facing a serious ticket sales slump, as audiences who packed the hall for the first two seasons following music director Carlos Kalmar’s arrival have deserted the orchestra in droves this fall. “Kalmar’s agenda — his choice of music — isn’t resonating with ticket buyers. It’s quirky, bordering on — how shall we say — bizarre.” But the orchestra’s problems may run deeper than programming choices. “Classical musicians aren’t good at rousing the electorate. They don’t know how to create buzz. They either think buzz is beneath them or they believe people don’t care enough about them to justify buzz. And yet, in this digital age, it takes a rapid-response public-relations blitz to get anything done.”
Radio City Exec Scuttled Deal With Apology Demand, Musicians Claim
The striking (or locked out, depending on whom you ask) musicians at New York’s Radio City Music Hall have filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, saying that the musicians actually accepted the terms of a new contract on Friday, hours after the strike began, but that the head of Radio City’s ownership group refused to implement the deal unless the union placed a newspaper ad saying that it had lied in its press statements leading up to the strike. Radio City isn’t commenting directly on the charge, but it has issued a hotly worded statement blasting the musicians’ union. Radio City’s famous Christmas Spectacular performances have been continuing with recorded music in place of the 35-piece orchestra.
Construction Boom Causing Venue Crunch In KC
Kansas City is pumping millions of dollars into renovation projects for two of the city’s venerable performance venues. But a decision to move up the start of one of the projects by a year has arts groups scrambling to find a place to perform during the renovations. “Some blame the construction rush on the city’s desire to book The Lion King, even though the Broadway blockbuster has yet to announce whether it will play [Kansas City] in 2007-08.”
Is Live-To-Tape The Future For Classical Recording?
Large-scale opera recordings appear to be rapidly becoming a relic of the past, as record companies continue to cut costs and ease classical music out of their catalog. “But before we all get out our handkerchiefs, what are we really losing? Is a studio recording, especially of a complete opera, so much better than a live performance captured on tape? Is an edited sequence of perfect takes worth all the losses in continuity and physical atmosphere? And is the studio recording really finished, or is its rumoured demise just clever promotion?”
New Deal In Fort Worth
The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra has finalized a new 5-year contract with its musicians which calls for a 14% raise over the life of the deal and makes changes to certain working conditions. There had been speculation that the musicians might refuse to ratify the contract, which was offered with only the faintest endorsement by the musicians’ negotiating team. But when the votes were counted, the orchestra, which has been performing under an extension of its previous contract since August, could breath a sigh of relief.
Zeroing In On Piracy In Malaysia
“Malaysia’s government has been accused of failing to act on evidence that licensed CD factories are producing pirated music, films and software. The country’s recording industry says pirated discs from 12 of the 44 factories licensed by the government have been exported abroad. The suspect plants continue to operate despite complaints while illegal plants have been shut down, the industry says. Malaysia is thought to be the world’s largest exporter of pirated discs.”