The Royal Winnipeg Ballet used to have a problem attracting boys for its dance school. So the company instituted a financial incentive program that has seen enrolment for boys grow from about 25 to 250 each year. “The professional division of the ballet has reaped the benefits, with a larger talent pool of young male dancers to choose from.”
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Italian Culture Minister: I’ll Resign If You Cut
Italian culture minister Rocco Buttiglione says he’ll resign unless the government cancels plans to cut spending on culture by 35 percent. “This is not only a battle for the opera and the struggling Italian film industry, but also for the theatre, for libraries and archives. We have to defend ourselves on a broad front,”
Stolen Cezanne For Other Paintings?
Twenty-seven years ago seven paintings were stolen from Michael Bakwin’s home. “The thieves took a Cézanne, two Soutines, a Vlaminck, a Utrillo and two works by the French painter Jean Jansen. Despite a police investigation the works did not resurface until 1999.” Then a negotiation ensued, deals were made, and though the Cezanne was returned, the others are now in dispute…
Why Classical Music Belongs In School
“Classical music should be a fundamental part of the school curriculum, for it is as relevant today as ever. A now notorious 2002 survey undertaken by Classic FM established that 65 per cent of six- to 14-year-olds were unable to name a single classical composer and could not differentiate between instruments. This highlighted the neglect of music in many of our schools and was enough of a shock to provoke a response. That response was the Government’s much-touted 2004 music manifesto, which was full of good intentions but short on how they would be delivered.”
Scotland Gets Paintings Trove
After a 20-year saga, a collection of 14 master paintings has been given to Scotland, including works by Gainsborough, Murillo and Rubens. “A story that links the National Galleries in Edinburgh to a sleepy village in the heart of the English countryside, includes a decade-old row between two of the most distinguished institutions in Scotland, and, along the way, involves Winston Churchill’s secret headquarters for D-Day.”
Amazon Growth Slows
To counter a slowdown in sales increases, Amazon is extending its free shipping offer in the UK. “Amazon said growth this year would be between 13% and 24%, below the 31% recorded last year.”
Experts: Portrait Isn’t Shakespeare
A portrait long believed to be of William Shakespeare, is not,say experts. “The only evidence is that the portrait is dated 1588 and was painted, according to the inscription, when the sitter was 24 – making him the same age as the playwright. The back of the painting bears the initials WS – but they were added in the 19th century.”
Profits Aside, They’re Still Suing
Remember back before recording companies started to make buckets of money from downloadable music, when they were so desperate to stop illegal file-trading that they started suing hundreds of college kids for millions of dollars? Yeah, well, they never actually stopped doing that. This week, the Recording Industry Association of America filed 745 new “John Doe” lawsuits against users of various peer-to-peer networks whom the RIAA suspects of passing copyrighted material. Why the “John Doe” caveat? The RIAA doesn’t actually know who the offenders are, so they effectively sue the user’s IP address, then try to sue or intimidate colleges and other internet providers into revealing the identities of the people behind the computer signature.
Is CBC Managing Itself Into Irrelevance?
The CBC lockout is over, and programming has returned to normal for most Canadians. But why did such a fiasco have to occur in the first place? Since CBC president Robert Rabinovitch was hired in 1999, there have actually been four work stoppages, and Michael Posner says that all fingers should be pointing squarely at Rabinovitch and his overly aggressive, even evangelical style of management. “By some bizarre inversion, the obsession with process and efficiency had actually become the primary operational focus. An entire generation of journalists and producers were being trained to think like actuaries.”
Warning To Non-Profits: Your Donors May Hold A Grudge
“A new report suggests that most ordinary donors to charities have long memories about scandals at tax-exempt organizations but little awareness of high-level policy debates on the need for more government regulation of such groups… It claims that such donors wrote off a particular charity once it became tainted in their minds, whether by scandal or poor performance. Yet problems at a particular organization did not necessarily translate into cynicism about all charities.”