Our hunger for happiness books is virtually unslakable. “It seems to be an American phenomenon. We buy can-do books that teach us to fix our problems. It’s like having your own personal life coach, and it’s less expensive than seeing a shrink.”
Blog
Music For Babies
“Numerous studies conclude that playing music to babies in the womb and in the early years helps build the neural bridges along which thoughts and information travel. And research suggests it can stimulate the brain’s alpha waves, creating a feeling of calm; a recent study of premature infants found that they were soothed by the music.” Now a new program aims at bringing music to the very young. “Sound Beginnings – and a planned “baby prom” next year – came about as babies and toddlers are rarely welcome in concert halls.”
London Symphony At A Crossroads
Clive Gillinson Leaves a successful London Symphony behind. “First among British orchestras, it set up a New York office and a residency at Lincoln Center. Its record label, LSO Live, sells tracks on iTunes. Gillinson slashed concert tickets to a fiver with a view to attracting younger listeners and urged players to get a life outside the orchestra, making chamber music and educational ventures in what he reinvisaged as a ‘portfolio career’. Life in the LSO is more varied than before; around one-third of the players have been attracted from abroad.” And yet there are persistent artistics problems to solve, writes Norman Lebrecht.
Chicago Lyric In The Passing Lane
Chicago Lyric Opera is a juggernaut of efficiency. “The 91 performances given last season generated box office revenues of more than $30 million, on an operating budget of $58.2 million. Fundraising topped $21.5 million, the highest in the company’s history. Of that amount, $5 million came from Lyric’s sold-out golden jubilee concert in October. The endowment campaign reached its goal of $50 million.”
60 Years Of Borodin
Valentin Berlinsky has been a member of the Borodin String Quartet since its first concert. “It is rare for a quartet to have an unbroken history of 60 years, unique for the same artist to have been a member throughout. While there have been changes of occupancy in the other three seats over the years, Berlinsky, now a nimble 80-year-old, took part in the quartet’s first public concerts in 1945 (when it was known as the Moscow Conservatoire Quartet) and has been its common thread ever since.”
The Great American Musical Project
The American Music Theatre Project is a $2 million, multiyear endeavor designed to turn Northwestern University into the “leading collegiate incubator of new works of musical theater. If all goes according to the long-range plan, future summers in Evanston will feature a variety of music-theater professionals working with students on new musicals in a developmental atmosphere somewhat akin to the Sundance Theatre Institute or a musical version of the Williamstown Theatre Festival or the Iowa Writers Workshop.”
A New Plan For New Musicals
“The American Music Theatre Project, which has a $2 million budget for its initial three-year trial period, will bring top artists in the field to the Northwestern Unigversity campus to collaborate with the school’s students, and with a faculty that already includes professional artists — among them Frank Galati and Mary Zimmerman — who have national and international reputations. During this period, four new shows, each in various stages of completion, will receive high-level public productions in one of the school’s many theaters.”
Penguin At 70
Penguin Paberbacks are 70 years old this year. “Nowadays, there are some 5,000 different titles in print at any time, translated into up to 62 languages. But what makes Penguin one of the world’s most enduring publishers?”
A Matter Of Reputations (How Does It Work?)
“No problem in literature, perhaps, is less instantly soluble than the question of reputations: the bewildering process by which, in the years after their deaths, one writer’s stock soars while another’s sinks into bankruptcy. The only real judge of a book, Martin Amis once remarked, is posterity.”
Kudelka – More Time For Choreography
National Ballet of Canada sources say James Kudelka was not forced out of the artistic director job this week. Kudelka wanted more time to spend on his choreography. “You’ve got to ask yourself a question, if you are James Kudelka: ‘How many great years of choreography do I have in me? And do I take my salad years and spend them doing performance appraisals or joining in funding calls or all the other ancillary things you have to do as artistic director?'”