Talk to orchestra execs around the U.S. about their biggest headaches, and slumping summer sales will likely make the list, even for big-budget bands like the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony. But in Minneapolis, where the Minnesota Orchestra has been mounting a major summer festival in the heart of the city for more than a quarter-century, ticket sales have actually risen in each of the last three years. Even so, the orchestra has been playing things awfully safe in recent summers, programming mainly crowd-pleasers and avoiding anything the marketing department might find unpleasant. Striking the right balance seems somehow to be more difficult in warm weather than cold…
Blog
Art Student’s Fake Suicide (Explained?)
The UCLA art student who last year faked his suicide with a gun he had carved out of wood has come forward to tell his story. “Deutch, now 26, also knew that gunplay could upset fellow students and get him in trouble with campus authorities. But in his first comments on the incident, he says he never dreamed, as he got up to perform in UCLA’s graduate art annex in Culver City, that his phantom gunshot would ricochet and cause the departure of two UCLA professors, roiling the campus for several months.”
Pope’s Not Wild About Harry
“As the sixth issue of Rowling’s Harry Potter series – Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – is about to be released, the news that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger expressed serious reservations about the novels is now finally being revealed to the English-speaking world still under the impression the Vatican approves the Potter novels.”
Death To The Biennale?
A trip through this summer’s Venice Biennale makes you dispair of the whole idea, writes Jerry Saltz. “After a show like this it’s tempting to say that biennial culture is over, that these fetes are too big, baggy, and bureaucratic to reflect the state of art. By now it’s unclear who they’re for: The several hundred thousand who come to see them or the several thousand from the art world. Yet, just when they seem dead, a new age of biennials looms. In roughly 700 days, starting early June 2007, a kind of Harmonic Convergence of super exhibitions is slated to take place when the Venice Biennale, Documenta XII, and the Munster Sculpture Project will open one after the other.”
A New Digital Music Instrument
A new digital music interface replaces the computer keyboard. “The computer interface is an adjustable, hollow device affixed to four thin metal tubes divided by a bridge into long and short sections. By positioning the fingers on the long section, a player can control pitch; by positioning the other hand’s fingers on the short section, the player can control such things as tempo and volume. Four laser pointers shining down the length of each rod relay the plucking motion to a tiny Web camera located on the bridge. When the player presses on the rods, the finger splits the beam of light, reflecting a splotch of light back to the camera.”
Desperate Housewives Scores Emmy Nominations
“The ABC series, competing in the comedy category, received 15 nominations, sharing status as series front-runner with the rowdy NBC sitcom “Will & Grace,” which also got 15 bids. Premium cable channel HBO once again dominated the made-for-TV category with two of its films, “The Life and Death of Peter Sellers” and “Warm Springs,” each garnering 16 bids to top all nominees.”
Why Won’t Anybody Buy Masterpiece Theatre?
Corporate funding for PBS’ Masterpiece Theatre ended last year, but try as they might, PBS has been unable to find a new sponsor. “Since Masterpiece debuted in 1971, ExxonMobil had been its sole underwriter. PBS is picking up the tab for two more seasons, but at half the previous budget. That translates to about seven titles over 20 Sundays this season – half the output of previous years. A co-production with the BBC, Masterpiece has a core audience of “highly educated, higher-income” women over 50, says a rep for the program. Though that’s not the most prized demographic, PBS president Pat Mitchell can’t understand why the network’s crown jewel is such a tough sell.”
Why PBS Will Always Be Poor
“PBS is in real trouble, financially. Its difficult straits are misunderstood by nearly everyone. When PBS was created, early ideas to tax the sale of television sets and also to tax the broadcast networks (which are profiting off of the government- owned airwaves) went nowhere because politicians fear powerful lobbyists and don’t necessarily fear you. Unless you stand up. But when do you do that? When you worry money will be taken away from PBS. It’s true. People just like you, but possibly more riled, called their representatives, and a bipartisan group of politicians got the message and restored cuts to PBS. Hooray! PBS remains underfunded! See: complicated.”
Video Revolution Creates Generation Of Movie-makers With Nowhere To Go
“Do-it-yourself video technology has given an entire generation of young filmmakers the tools to master the video art form. But it has also created a cutthroat environment where only a few can find work. With an entire generation that has grown up behind the lens of digital technology, the movie industry has become very competitive, filled with young directors trying to break into the business.” There isn’t enough Hollywood to keep them all busy.
A Pink Floyd Opera?
Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters has written an opera about the French Revolution. “It’s not just a piece about the French Revolution, it’s about revolution in a much broader sense, and it’s about the capacity that human beings have for personal change. The piece is an exultation and an encouragement to those of us who believe the human race can discover its humanity and its capacity for empathy to the point where it may be possible for us at some point to guarantee the basic human rights of the individual (around the world).”