The conductor died six years after being diagnosed with a rare blood disease died today at his home in Uffing, Germany at the age of 68. He was a popular guest conductor and was music director of the Phoenix Symphony from 1997-2004.
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Status: Cultural Instititutions After The Hurricane
Wondering what has happened to cultural institutions on the Gulf Coast after huricane Katrina? Here’s a list compiled by the American Association of Museums…
Jerry Hall Ads Banned From London Underground
Former model Jerry Hall won’t be seen in the London Underground anytime soon. “Ads for her new reality show, “Kept,” have been banned from London’s subway system because the poster — which shows Hall surrounded by several half-naked men with her holding a leash wrapped around their necks — violates a rule banning the use of people as sex objects.”
Competing For Art
Major auction houses compete hard for the collections they sell. “To win a coveted collection, Sotheby’s and Christie’s will offer everything from elaborate dinner parties and Champagne and caviar served in the skyboxes to single-owner catalogues and all-expense-paid trips around the world. But what matters most right now is the money that the firms are guaranteeing and advancing to consignors, more so than the track record of the auction house or the personal relationships that have been created. In the majority of cases, when push comes to shove, the money will win.”
Do You Have To Be Young To Write A Good Pop Song?
“As rock has got older, musicians and audiences have inevitably aged with it, but questions remain about what happens to the creative process over the years.”
Rock Magazine Boom
The boom in iPod sales is fueling a surge in subscriptions to rock magazines…
Podcasting Comes To Books
The latest in books? Podcasting – or “podiobooks.” “Are podcast books really anything more than a trendy version of audiobooks? Since podiobooks are delivered in easy and consumable ‘chunks’, much of the ‘bookmarking’ hassle has been taken away. The ease of consumption allows you to listen to many books at one time. And Podiobooks are also free from the technology hassles of downloadable complete audio books.”
In Praise Of Mozart’s Wife
Mozart owed a lot of his success to his wife. “Constanze and her sisters were brought up in Mannheim, a centre of musical excellence. And, in addition to the sophistication she absorbed from this artistic milieu, she was intelligent – speaking excellent Italian and French as well as her native German. In many ways, she was an ideal wife for a composer. Mozart himself was firmly of that opinion.”
Is Leipzig The Next Big Thing?
The city of Leipzig is opening a new museum, building on a thriving new visual arts scene. “The city’s vast train station made it central Europe’s transport hub and, particularly in music (Bach, Mendelssohn and Schumann all lived there for a while), it has long been a cultural hub as well. Now it is the storming art scene that is driving the city’s rise, with young artists emerging from the conservative (they teach painting) academy being touted, with the usual art world hyperbole, as the successors to the Young British Artists, while their work is snapped up – leading collectors including Jay Jopling, Charles Saatchi and Marianne Boesky.”
Details – The Repulsive Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner’s personal shortcomings are well known. A new book lays it out in unstinting detail. “It’s all here: how often Wagner sponged off others, how many women succumbed to his psoriatic charms, what creditors he swindled, where he fled and why, what he said about Jews, how he used everybody, what friends and supporters (from the great Liszt to the sad Ludwig II) he bad-mouthed and in one way or another betrayed. Of course, how he could attract so many absolutely impassioned admirers is far less easy to understand than how he came to quarrel with most of them. But if charisma is puzzling when one doesn’t feel it oneself even in the case of contemporaries, how much more puzzling for this long-dead, repulsive little man, Wagner.”