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Making Arts Accessible (How About $15 Tickets?)

Off-Broadway’s Signature Theatre slashes ticket prices to all its shows to $15 (the deal is underwritten by Time Warner). “At $15 the Signature tickets will run about the price of a movie and soda. (And a small soda at that.) Most Off Broadway companies, looking at declines in corporate, public and private giving, have steadily raised prices in recent years, with seats now regularly going for $50 or more. (The Signature generally charges $55.) On Broadway, orchestra seats commonly go for $100, while premium tickets can reach nearly $500.”

Art In Musical Terms

There is a relationship, but does one describe the other? “The notion was to take the novelty of abstract art, so radical before World War I that it could hardly be imagined, and justify it by comparison to music. If a Beethoven string quartet could be understood and admired on its own terms, without imagining that it painted a sonic picture of the world, visual art should have the same freedom to escape from rendering reality. The notes and timbres and structures of music could be compared to the colors and textures and forms of a painting; a talented artist could assemble them into a visual “composition” every bit as affecting, meaningful and praiseworthy as anything that goes on in a fancy concert hall.”

Visual Shorthand – How We Talk About Music

“Unless you use the specialist’s language of musicology and talk in terms that only musicians would understand, to put music into words you must borrow ideas from other art forms and the senses to which they appeal. Making sense of music requires that we speak as if we have seen it, or smelled it, or felt it with our hands. So flutes make bright tones, trombones dark ones. Composers, we say, work like architects, structuring sound, building arches of melody. At one moment, musicians may play dense or textured sounds, at another, thin and airy ones. Even the most basic musical terms — high notes, low notes — are described with spatial metaphors. What’s the “high” point on a piano string?”

Montreal Symphony Cancels Summer Season Because Of Strike

“On paper, 13 concerts are affected by the move, which an OSM statement blamed on the musicians’ strike that began on May 9. In fact, several of the OSM’s concert partners had already withdrawn their invitations to perform, for fear of a long strike. The OSM is usually the most active of Canadian orchestras in the hot months, with habitual engagements at the Lanaudière Festival, and at concerts in parks and other civic spaces.”

Do Books Need To Go On A Diet?

“All books should be exactly as long as they need to be. There is no ideal length. But like mainstream Hollywood films, nonfiction books have shown a tendency to expand in recent years, for no particular reason. Directors cannot bring a film in at 90 minutes anymore. Likewise, my shelves are overloaded with nonfiction titles that, 30 years ago, would have been 225 or 250 pages. I’m not sure why. Fatter spines do look more imposing, and readers may feel, subconsciously, that $30 should buy them a thick, substantial volume. But time and again, I find, the extra weight comes from empty calories.”

Karen Kain To Lead Canada’s National Ballet

Karen Kain, arguably Canada’s most beloved dancer, will be appointed artistic director of the National Ballet of Canada. “Ms. Kain, 54, succeeds James Kudelka, whose surprise resignation from the post last month takes effect June 30. Mr. Kudelka has said he wants to spend more time creating ballets and less time dealing with the administrative headaches often associated with the job. For seven years, Ms. Kain has been the company’s artistic associate under Mr. Kudelka.”

Iraq Joins “Most-Endangered” List

For the first time, the World Monuments Fund has listed an entire country as endangered. It’s Iraq, and the country joins other threatened sites from 55 countries that include a Modernist building in New York and a hut in Antarctica. “The list of 100 at-risk sites, issued by the privately financed World Monuments Fund every two years, is chosen from nominations made by a broad array of experts in archeology and the arts.”

San Jose Nudges Up Arts Funding

The city of San Jose, CA has increased its arts funding a tiny bit – to $2 million next year. “The funding jump, up from $1.8 million last year, is the first since 2001-02 when the city awarded $3.9 million in grants. Before Tuesday’s vote, arts funding had steadily declined each fiscal year, which begins July 1 ends June 30.”