Blog

Can Music Soothe the Middle East?

Daniel Barenboim’s orchestra made up of young Israelis and Arabs offers some hope for peace. “In a week that had seen the occupied territories once again hitting global headlines, as 8,000 Jewish settlers finally withdrew from appropriated land in the Gaza strip, the arrival in the West Bank city of an orchestra that was founded to promote the principles of peace and reconciliation seemed to offer some faint hope of normality and harmony. The town’s ‘cultural palace’, built last year, was full to bursting, its capacity of 800 boosted by at least another 300 people sitting in the aisles and standing at the back of the hall, and the concert was broadcast live on television in Israel and through much of Europe.” But can music make a lasting difference?

The Greatest Painting? What Does It Mean?

“What, exactly, does it mean to call a painting “great”, let alone the “greatest”? If greatness in art has any meaning it is at odds with an opinion poll that throws it open to the people’s choice. If greatness exists it must be objective and absolute and therefore not ours to vote for. Greatness suggests a world historical significance, a sublimity. It has nothing to do with competition.”

Reconsidering Matisse

“The key fact is his self-invention as a painter, entering art history from essentially nowhere, as if by parachute. Never having had traditional lessons to unlearn (unlike Picasso, with his incessant industry of demolishing and reconstructing the inherited language of painting), Matisse innovated on something like whim—a privilege, without guidelines or guarantees, for which he paid a steep toll in anxiety. There is even a touch of the naïf or the primitive about him, though it is hard to grasp, because his works quickly assumed the status of classics, models of the modern.”

Will Menlo Reinstate Arts Commission?

Last year all seven members of the Menlo Park, California Arts Commission quit when the city decided to repeal its percent-for-art ordinance. Now a proposa; to reinstate the commission has drawn hesitation from the mayor. “Personally, I would love to see a huge number of commissions. But the amount of staff time devoted to a commission can be quite intense. If we reinstate the Arts Commission, we have to ask ourselves what it would displace.”

Shakespeare On The Range

“Now in its 33rd year, Montana’s Bozeman Shakespeare in the Parks theater company was created to bring free productions of such classics to rural, underserved communities that dot the northern Rockies. Since its creation in 1973, the company has traversed more than 250,000 miles of dirt and paved roads and performed before a cumulative audience of more than half a million people.”