“Charles Mackerras’s career has belatedly been recognised as great, but not because, like some jet-setting conductors, he set out to accumulate all music’s most glittering prizes – his CV is surprisingly short of those defining music directorships at Covent Garden or La Scala, or chief conductor posts in Berlin, Chicago or London. Rather, his 60-year career has been characterised by a combination of musicological awareness, meticulous preparation and highly charged performance.”
Blog
A Surge In French Art Thefts
Art thefts are on the rise in France, as the country threatens to become the most-looted in Europe, surpassing Italy. “There has been a huge spike in these kinds of cases recently, largely due to the wrong people realising that there are easy pickings to be had. Few law enforcement agencies prioritise art theft, despite it being linked to drugs, arms and people-trafficking and prostitution. It is only going to get worse.”
Garth Brooks – Only At Wal-Mart
Brooks has cut a deal with the mega-retailer to sell his music exclusively there. “Brooks’ arrangement is the first time an artist has made an entire catalog available only through one outlet. Exclusive albums as special one-time promotions are becoming increasingly common, such as when Alanis Morissette and Bob Dylan limited sales to Starbucks Corp. Music retailers complain, however, that such deals are bad for the industry. Some pulled Morissette’s albums from their shelves after she cut her Starbucks deal.”
Getting To Know Michael Brand
The new Getty Museum director spent his summers as a youth traveling to see art. “Hearing the music in Italy, going to temples in India, eating the food in France — those formative lessons helped shape Brand’s philosophy, his view of art. People who approach art purely through art history and European paintings, he said, might tend to look at paintings as two-dimensional things, of another time, to be purchased and put on a wall. But ‘my first experiences were more in places where there are rituals going on and there are people and sculptures and temples and sound’.”
Batman And Robin Kissing? Take It Down!
A New York gallery has been told by DC Comics to take down pictures depicting Batman and Robin kissing. “The colour pictures, which depict the superheroes in a number of homoerotic poses, were put on display in the gallery in February. Seven images from the collection were subsequently displayed on the Artnet site.”
Will Movie Studios Pull TV Ads?
Movie studios are reassessing their TV advertising. “Network TV has been part of Hollywood’s sales formula for many years, as studios desperate to launch expensive blockbusters blitzed the national airwaves in an effort to reach the broadest possible audience. But many studio executives now are calling that formula into question, having watched this summer as it failed to pay off amid a string of box-office laggards. The diminishing effectiveness of such ads is to some symptomatic of a broader problem in Hollywood.”
Thorne Named To Head Pritzker
Martha Thorne, an associate curator at the Art Institute of Chicago has been named executive director of the Pritzker Prize for architecture. “Thorne’s ascent to the paid, part-time Pritzker post marks the first time since the award was established in 1979 that it will be administered from Chicago, the hometown of the prize’s sponsor, the billionaire Pritzker family. Previous executive directors — including the late Brendan Gill, the New Yorker magazine’s architecture critic, and the immediate past executive director, Bill Lacy, former president of Purchase College — have been from the New York area.”
Marin Alsop On Getting Past The Controversy Of Her Baltimore Appointment
”You know, when it started getting like this weird personal thing, I really tried to dissociate from it, because it did feel very, very personal. I insisted on having a private meeting with the musicians, and I said, ‘Look, I have some really hard feelings about this, but I’m willing to put them aside if you’re willing to meet me halfway.’ “
School Ditches Books For Computers
A public school in Arizona ditches textbooks and gives each of its students iBook computers instead. “Students get the materials over the school’s wireless internet network. The school has a central filtering system that limits what can be downloaded on campus. The system also controls chat-room visits and instant messaging that might otherwise distract wired students. Students can turn in homework online. A web program checks against internet sources for plagiarized material and against the work of other students.”
CBC Locks Out Employees
The CBC has locked out 5,500 unionized workers after prolonged negotiations failed to produce a contract. “Viewers of CBC Newsworld awoke yesterday morning to a prolonged period of dead air on their screens, and a lengthy set of Canadian music on the CBC’s Radio 1, in place of the top-rated Metro Morning program. Taped material was continually spun throughout the day on the radio service, punctuated by brief hourly news reports by unfamiliar announcers. Each report was followed by a taped apology for the absent programs, which it blamed on a “labour dispute.”