The readers of the UK’s Gramophone magazine have voted San Francisco Symphony music director Michael Tilson Thomas their Artist of the Year. “Thomas beat out a slate of musicians compiled by the editors that also included mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, pianist Marc-André Hamelin, violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and tenor Rolando Villazón.”
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The Rebel
“James Dean has been dead for 50 years. That’s hard to imagine, just as it’s hard to imagine that he was ever alive, at least alive in the normal sense of occupying space and being in only one place at any given time. These mundane facts — life, death, time, space — are hard to reconcile with the whole Dean package, the talent, the legend and the iconography that have accumulated around his memory in the years since his fatal smash-up on Sept. 30, 1955.”
Broadway’s Hottest Couple Sells Out
Want a ticket to see Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane in the new Broadway revival of Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple? Well, you should have thought of that weeks ago. The show is sold out through the end of its planned run, and the producer recently came to the dual realizations that a) he no longer has to care what the critics will say, and b) it would be dishonest for him to place any ads for the show, since he has no tickets to sell. Of course, if you’re truly desperate for your Broderick-Lane fix, you could always try the ticket brokers, but bring plenty of cash: a decent seat is going for as much as $1000.
Look At Me! Look At Me Helping!
In the wake of the dual hurricanes that battered the U.S. Gulf Coast, television and its stars have suddenly become all about helping out. You can hardly flip a channel without coming across some sort of benefit or helping hand effort. But Paul Brownfield says that there’s something profoundly disturbing about the charitable handout offered by television: after all, the networks and stars parading so publicly could easily have helped out quietly like everyone else, but then American wouldn’t have been able to see them helping. And really, that’s the important thing.
TV’s Own Indie Fest
“After eight years of pitching and persuading, the first New York Television Festival opened Wednesday with the backing of TV Guide, such networks as NBC, Fox, MTV and Comedy Central, and powerhouse agencies like William Morris. Participants are an eclectic lot that includes a former NASCAR racer and a metalworker in Madison, Wis. Most found out about the event online or at one of three launch parties in New York, Los Angeles and London earlier this year. As the first event of its kind, the television festival represents an initial step toward creating an alternative way to develop programming outside the studio and network system. But it remains to be seen whether the five-day event has the potential to remake the television industry the way Sundance and other film festivals affected the movie industry.”
Guggenheim Gets The New Adam At Long Last
“A monumental example of Pop Art whose whereabouts were unknown to scholars and art historians for 30 years has been given to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. The New Adam, a nine-panel painting 8 feet high and nearly 40 feet long by the Oklahoma-born artist Harold Stevenson, has long been considered one of the great American nudes.” The painting was originally created for the Guggenheim in 1962, but was rejected for exhibition due to its content.
When The City Makes The Man
Some celebrities seem to be not only a product of their own personality, but of their surroundings as well, and never was a backdrop more important to a public figure than New York was to Truman Capote. “Perhaps he could have flourished only in the New York that was a city of literary ambition, the one after World War II, as his biographer, Gerald Clarke, contends. Perhaps he could have flourished in any New York, especially today’s, that prizes talent and a wink, as his friend Gay Talese, the author, contends. But what is clear is that he could not have become Truman Capote in any place but New York… Capote embodied a New York story of exile, triumph and disillusion.”
The No-Longer-Quite-So-Cheap-But-Still-Quite-A-Bargain Seats
“For the first time in four years , the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra has raised prices on the cheap seats at Powell Hall. This comes in the midst of a publicity blitz for new symphony music director David Robertson, who is drawing raves. Before this year, the cheap seats were a terrific bargain at just $10. That’s for 71 seats in the first three rows (called Orchestra Front on the symphony’s Web site). These seats are not for everyone: they’re like the front row at the movie theater. But if you enjoy being really involved with the sound, you can’t beat it: the music is all around you. This year, the cheap seats went up to $15.”
The Evolving Art of Conducting
For the most part, the days when a conductor could rule his orchestra with rage and threats are gone, and most musicians expect the rehearsal atmosphere to be one of collegial, if not exactly friendly, collaboration. But as conductors have changed, the art of conducting has, as well: the physical demands are not nearly as great as the riddle of how to motivate a group of players and draw out their best performance. The best conductors are frequently those who never seem to be imposing their will on the orchestra, but still maintain a firm grip on the reins of interpretation. In other words, friendly is good, but respect is still the main thing.
The Power of Five
A group of regional performing arts centers in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Boston, Hartford, and St. Paul have banded together to form a new production company, with the intention of developing new touring shows which can play profitably at the centers, and also creating larger shows which could be of interest to Broadway. The five centers will share production costs and profits, and all will have equal rights to shows developed by the new partnership.