It’s a facility designed to emcourage experimentation. “This ethos – encouraging people to throw around ideas, and paying them for the privilege – is the driving force behind the whole building. Aside from the two big spaces, the Studio comprises a huddle of small offices in which writers, directors and composers can do anything they like. What these people are given is ‘a room, a computer, a telephone, free coffee and a weekly wage’. What they aren’t burdened with is an expectation to ‘perform’.”
Blog
Republicans Recommend Killing NEA, PBS
One hundred Republican members of Congress recommend ending funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and PBS. Says the report: “In 2001, America spent $27 billion on nonprofit arts funding: $11.5 billion from the private sector; $14 billion in earned income (tickets sales, etc.); and $1.3 billion in combined federal, state, and local public support (of which $105 million was from the NEA — 0.39% of total nonprofit arts funding),” the report states. “The funding could easily be funded by private donations. Savings: $1.8 billion over ten years ($678 million over five years).”
US News Eliminates Cultural Coverage
US News & World Report is cutting staff, including culture editor Sarah Sklaroff. “The culture department is being eliminated.”
How Starbucks Is Changing The Music Business
“When most stores are slashing CD prices, Starbucks is offering them for at least full price, and shifting millions. Traditional record retailers are both envious and nervous, major labels are rubbing their hands over the prospect of reaching 34 million new customers and industry analysts are wondering just how far Starbucks can go.”
Opera Australia – Caught In The Middle
Opera Australia is caught in the middle of a funding dispute between national and state governments. “The impasse means the company could not sign contracts with its performers for its 2007 season.”
Stop The Insanity. Star Soloist Fees Are Too High
“The time has come to impose a ceiling on concert fees of the kind that prevails in all the leading opera houses.” Outrageous soloist fees are killing the music business. “If the orchestras won’t ban greedy-guts soloists, the funding authorities should step in. Music is paid for in part by the taxpayer, who does not generally approve of subsidising rich foreigners unless they play football, and in part by private and corporate donors whose innocence of musical economics is cruelly abused by avaricious musicians. A principle needs to be re-established. Money that is given to the arts in a spirit of idealism should be put towards creative renewal. Any other purpose is bad for business and death for art.”
Working To Save Gulf Coast Art
Conservators are working overtime to save artworks damaged in the Gulf Coast hurricanes. “The American Institute for Conservation of Historic & Artistic Works, based in Washington, is sending conservators to help the Federal Emergency Management Agency and cultural associations determine how to best repair waterlogged historic documents, sodden furniture and artwork. It also will help private citizens with damaged collections and heirlooms. Even before the floodwaters buried New Orleans, efforts were under way to preserve art treasures.”
My Name Is Shakespeare, Theory #3,482
The latest theory in the who-was-Shakespeare sweepstakes has arrived: “An Elizabethan diplomat named Sir Henry Neville was the real author of William Shakespeare’s plays, a new book claims.”
Louisiana Phil On The Road
The Louisiana Philharmonic performed in Nashville Tuesday night. “It may have been the Louisiana Philharmonic’s first concert since the hurricane, but will not be its last. The New York Philharmonic will present the ensemble in a joint concert on Oct. 28 at Avery Fisher Hall. And they are weighing a half-dozen other invitations from around the country.”
New Orleans Classical In Nashville
“Just as most people wouldn’t think of a major symphony orchestra first (or even second) when thinking of Nashville, so too New Orleans brings up images of Louis Armstrong, Fats Domino and the Marsalis brothers–not Rossini, Saint-Saëns and Shostakovich. Still, that’s something of a tourist’s view of the Crescent City, as New Orleans–both past and present–has a rich tradition of European art music too.”