The strangest new trend in live concertgoing is all about pretending that you’re actually alone. Rather than piling up walls of speakers to pump sound into a room, several music festivals have begun providing a bank of headphone jacks for people to plug in their personal ear gear, and the whole room rocks in what sounds to a non-participant like silence. “The idea of a live show experienced solely through headphones originated eight years ago in France when a Paris musician named Erik Minkkinen streamed a concert from his closet. As the story goes, three people in Japan tuned in. Despite the tiny audience, the idea evolved into a decentralized organization under the name le placard, or the closet, a kind of open-source music festival where anyone can establish a streaming and/or listening room.”
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Picasso’s Pottery
A collection of more than 100 pieces of pottery by Pablo Picasso will be sold at auction in London this fall. Included in the sale will be a famous Picasso earthenware vase called “Tripode,” which is expected to fetch the highest price.
Boston Considers Public Art Plan
“Boston likes to call itself the Athens of America, with its world-renowned symphony and ballet, libraries, and intellectual might. But some officials in a city that has long claimed itself a cultural hotbed worry that Boston has fallen far behind other cities in its promotion of public art. Saying that dozens of other cities have set aside large funds for public art while Boston does little, City Councilor Michael Ross said he will propose today that the city require private developers to put 1 percent of their construction costs into a fund to finance public art around the city… [But] developers already face tough building restrictions and must set aside money for affordable housing and job training, [and] may not be eager to pay more.”
NJSO Negotiations Need More Time
Contract negotiations with the musicians of the cash-strapped New Jersey Symphony are set to go into overtime tonight, when the current collective bargaining agreement expires. Both sides say negotiations are proceeding amicably, and there is no risk of a strike or a lockout. The NJSO musicians accepted a temporary pay cut in 2003, and are hoping to maintain their current salary of $44,975 under the new deal, even as they accept a role in bringing the organization back to fiscal stability.
Hirst Buys Mansion For Museum
Damien Hirst has bought a rotting old gothic mansion and pland to turn it into a museum for his work. “Hirst fell in love with the grade one listed building as soon as he saw it and now regards it as a lifetime’s work to restore the mansion and grounds, which have fallen into serious disrepair. His ambition will not come cheap. He is believed to have spent about £3m to acquire the 124-acre estate and may need as much as £10m to refurbish it.”
The Rebirth Of A Mozart Festival
For years New York’s Mostly Mozart festival was a listless affair that many critics thought should be put out of its misery. But under the festival’s new music director French conductor Louis Langrée, the enterprise has been reborn. “Though Mr. Langrée can be credited with the rejuvenation, he has had a crucial ally in Jane S. Moss, the vice president for programming at Lincoln Center. Back in the dreary days when Gerard Schwarz was the festival’s music director, the playing of the orchestra was listless and, even worse, pointless. The musicians would run through a performance of a staple like Mozart’s Symphony in G minor, and you’d wonder why they were bothering.”
The Celebrities Who Think They’re Musically Talented
“What is it that makes people who have earned some success or social status imagine that they have the gift to command musical attention? Why, for instance, does the present chairman of English National Opera, Martin Smith, conduct the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (which he once financed), albeit in private performances? Why did the former chairman of Sony, Norio Ohga, demand to conduct top US and European orchestras, albeit in exchange for a million-dollar donation? Are these men so deficient in reality sensors that they fail to consider what orchestral musicians who work with real maestros must make of their pathetic presumption?”
Paik: Crossover Is The Problem With Classical Music
Korean pianist Paik Kun-woo thinks that the problems of classical music have been mis-characterized: “The real problem is commercial misuse of classical music. Sacrificing the quality of music never makes things better. Classical music is wonderful and complete in itself. Fusing two different genres of music can only ruin the original values of both.”
Italy’s Endangered Cultural Treasures
Many of Italy’s most famous cultural sites are in peril, and the government is embarking on a campaign to increase awareness of the problem. “Pollution, vandalism and natural decay have all contributed to the condition of many cultural sites. ‘The care and defence of our cultural and artistic heritage isn’t only the state’s responsibility, it is every Italian’s. Italians must care for the great art they have around them today, or it may not be there for future generations’.”
LA Times Hires A Theatre Critic
Three years after theatre critic Michael Phillips left the Los Angeles Times for the Chicago Tribune, the paper has hired a theatre critic. He’s Charles McNulty, a senior editor at the Village Voice, who used to work for Variety.