The Colorado Ballet has given up plans to buy a new home. “The decision comes a little less than two months after the ballet disclosed that it would not present the $800,000 to $1 million premiere of a ballet version of “Alice in Wonderland.” The work was to be part of the opening of the Ellie Caulkins Opera House in the fall.”
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Van Cliburn Finalists
The Van Cliburn Piano Competition enters its final round. “For the first time in the competition’s history, three Asian women have reached the finals. Two Italians and a Russian make up the men. “
Some Cliburn Demographics
This year’s Van Cliburn Piano Competition is a very international affair. But “of the 35 initial contestants, the largest group, 10, has graduated from or is still studying at New York’s Juilliard School. Seven are or have been students of Yoheved Kaplinsky, the Israeli-born chairwoman of the piano department. Four list Robert McDonald among their teachers.”
George C. Wolfe – Exit Interview
Departing director George C. Wolfe on his role leading the Public Theatre: “Very frequently I told people I felt like I was the whore standing in the window in Amsterdam luring certain kinds of artists and luring money into the building.”
Pollock… Or Not?
Two years ago a trove of paintings said to be by Jackson Pollock was discovered. “In the two weeks since the news of the works’ existence – delivered with the help of a Web site and a flurry of press releases – an intense and at times personal battle over who really painted them has been shaping up within a small, once unified group of the world’s leading Pollock experts.”
11 Ways To A better Brain
Okay – we’ve had doctors for a long time, and to be honest, a lot of the time they’ve only guessed at what makes us better. But more and more, they’re nailing down real answers to what makes our bodies work. So you want to build a better brain? Here are 11 things you can do to improve and retain mental health…
The Sarcastic Brain
Where does sarcasm come from? Turns out it’s a very specific part of the brain. “By comparing healthy people and those with damage to different parts of the brain, they found the front of the brain was key to understanding sarcasm…”
The New Texas Poet Laureate
Alan Birkelbach has been appointed Texas’ new poet laureate. He’s “a Plano computer analyst whose co-workers didn’t even know he wrote poetry.”
Mourning The Corcoran’s Gehry (What Might Have Been)
Las week the Corcoran Gallery In Washington announced it wouldn’t go ahead with a planned expansion by Frank Gehry. Benjamin Forgey is disappointed. “Gehry’s Corcoran joins the short, unhappy list of highly significant modern buildings designed for Washington but not built: Eliel and Eero Saarinen’s competition-winning 1939 design for a Smithsonian Gallery of Art on the Mall; and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Crystal Heights, the stunning mixed-use project he designed in 1940 for the spot where the Hilton Washington stands today. Both of these potential modernist masterpieces were staunchly opposed by the city’s architectural establishment. By contrast, Gehry’s building won widespread approval. Not that it helped.”
The Boston Symphony – Model For America’s Orchestras?
The Boston Symphony, writes John von Rhein, “is a unique orchestra, a unique audience and a unique administrative vision that has made the Boston Symphony Orchestra the business model for other symphony orchestras, at a time when just about everyone in classical music, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, is chanting the same litany of declining ticket sales, rising deficits and aging audiences.”