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Toronto Arts Groups Unite For The Big Ask

Five major Toronto arts organizations have joined forces to ask their provincial government for more cash to help complete major expansion projects currently in construction. “The united front is occurring at a crucial time in Toronto’s cultural renaissance, as organizations strive to find the final 10 or 15 per cent needed to complete their projects.”

John Irving, Mr. Rewrite

Author John Irving is working on his 11th and morst complicated novel. “If he weren’t a novelist, the guy could run seminars on the art of discipline. His work ethic has always been prodigious. “How many times can I rewrite this book that is three times longer and five times more complicated than most people’s novels? More times than anybody else. If I value one thing in myself as a writer, it’s that I could work and could learn to be proud of how many times I could revisit the same sentence, the same character.”

Alsop And Baltimore – Many Questions

“Exactly what those objections are or why Baltimore’s management was willing to hurt relations with the players to rush this appointment [of Marin Alsop] through are unclear. Is it, for the players, personal? Do they dislike her as a conductor? Are they unhappy with her predilection for American music? And what about management? Is it interested in Alsop’s vision? Or is it out for the publicity of hiring a woman? The Baltimore Symphony is not in particularly good shape these days. It’s deficit has been variously reported as $10 million and $12 million. And the orchestra has hardly demonstrated strong artistic vision of late.”

Alsop And Baltimore – A Difficult Future?

Marin Alsop hasn’t yet accepted the music director job of the Baltimore Symphony, which was offered to her Tuesday over the objections of the orchestra’s musicians. “The course of events in Baltimore leaves Alsop in an awkward spot. The job may be hers, but musical success hinges on that ineffable thing called chemistry. Liking, respecting, and trying hard for the conductor on the podium count for much in how well a performance goes. Such relationships are even harder to develop after the atmosphere has been poisoned with complaints such as the ones cataloged by Baltimore musicians and magnified in yesterday’s Washington Post.”

Product Placement Gone Wild

“In 2004, the value of television product placements (a product or brand name inserted for marketing purposes into entertainment fare) increased by 46.4 per cent over the year before, to $1.88 billion, according to the research firm PQ Media. For the networks and producers raking it in, that’s quite a haul. Meanwhile, the audience is at the receiving end of a sales drive neatly tucked into the story line, whether it’s for the Buick touted by sexy Gabrielle on ABC’s Desperate Housewives or the Campbell’s Soup served up on NBC’s American Dreams.”

Shorts Hit The (Medium) Big Time

Big media ompanies are on the hunt for young filmmakers who have been working in short-form internet video. “There’s very little quality short-form video available. Outside of the music industry, movie studios and cable channels aren’t in the habit of producing short videos, so there isn’t much inventory. What’s more, creating short formats popular on the internet isn’t a talent many professional TV and film producers have developed, since it’s enormously difficult to tell a story in three minutes.” So studios are turning to “a new breed of internet video producers creating low-budget, short-form films and animations for websites and web video channels.”

The Smithsonian’s Falling Down?

The Smithsonian’s 18 museums, 10 science centres and zoos, and other facilities are in bad disrepair, and many of have suffered “structural deterioration” and “chronic leaks” so severe that they have limited access to their collections. “Naturally, it all comes down to money. The Smithsonian spent $184.4 million for its facilities in fiscal year 2004, nearly 20% of its annual operating budget of $904 million which comes from federal appropriations and endowment revenues. But the Smithsonian estimates it needs $2.3 billion for revitalisation, construction, and maintenance of its buildings between 2005 and 2013.”

Critical Conversation: Do Critics Make The Art?

Sydney music critic Peter McCallum observes that great critics don’t reult in great art. “The vigorous state of criticism in London may be a better measure of its democracy than of its art, particularly as far as composition is concerned. That isn’t entirely the critic’s fault. Producing the sort of society which values music is more than critics can achieve. It goes to much deeper values built up over time and is particularly complex in a modern metropolis, which, of its nature, has several powerful forces which are somewhat antithetical to art. It also has the critical mass to enable diverse artistic activity to take place but, as we would all be aware, there are also many deadening effects. In the long term it is the art that is important, not the critics. Criticism is a good measure of social a democratic health but that doesn’t automatically imply artistic health.”