“Matthew Epstein, who left Lyric Opera of Chicago last month after a 25-year association, has returned to his former home base at Columbia Artists Management Inc. in New York. He agreed to a five-year contract as director of the company’s various vocal divisions. Currently celebrating its 75th anniversary, CAMI is one of world’s most prestigious artist management firms.”
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Melbourne Opera Merger Called Off
Two Melbourne opera companies have called off a planned merger. “Independent opera companies Melbourne City Opera and the Melbourne Opera Company announced plans in December to merge under the new name VicOpera. The new company appeared destined to benefit from a State Government funding boost, but the merger has been scrapped.”
Bringing The Mideast Together (For An Hour Or So)
“For Tamar Muskal, an Israeli-American composer, the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians goes beyond politics. It is music, it is poetry, it is the lone voice, speaking of pain and dreams… Ms. Muskal, who is Jewish and grew up in Israel, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, said that at 39 she realized that pain is pain, no matter who does the suffering.” Her latest composition attempts to reconcile the pain of both Israelis and Palestinians in a single work, combining music and texts from two cultures locked in seemingly permanent conflict.
Plimpton’s Paris Moves Downtown
The Paris Review, George Plimpton’s little-read but much-admired literary journal, hasn’t actually been based in Paris for decades. In fact, the small but devoted staff of the Review did their work in a small Manhattan office just one floor beneath Plimpton’s East Side apartment. But following Plimpton’s death last year, the editors found it inconceivable to continue putting out the magazine from a now-Plimptonless office, and chose to move again. No, they’re not headed back to Paris – lower Manhattan’s TriBeCa neighborhood will have to do.
Malcolm X, Reconsidered
A new exhibit at the New York Public Library is prompting a scholarly reexamination of the life and work of civil rights leader Malcolm X. The artifacts and writings from the life of the controversial activist provide a more complete look at the life of a highly complex thinker than has ever previously been available to the public, and “the exhibition also represents an end to a wrenching public struggle over their ownership of Malcolm X’s personal effects. After almost being auctioned in 2002, most of the items were reclaimed by the family, which deposited them with the [library] in 2003.”
Art Is In The Heir
You won’t usually find Alice Walton’s name listed among America’s more prominent art collectors, but the WalMart heiress has spent the last 15 years amassing an impressive array of American art. “Slowly and methodically, Ms. Walton has paid top dollar at auction and through dealers for the best paintings, drawings and sculptures she can find by artists like Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, George Bellows, Marsden Hartley and Charles Willson Peale. The goal, the family foundation says, is to start a museum in Bentonville, Ark., where her father, Sam Walton, opened his first retail store in 1951.”
Jack Soto’s 25 Years At NY City Ballet
“Jock Soto retires from the New York City Ballet’s stage on June 19 at the age of 40, after 25 years with the company. For the latter part of that period he has been extolled as a partner—as if that were his main (even sole) virtue, as was, essentially, the case with the company’s Conrad Ludlow in the past and Charles Askegard today.” But there was so much more to his dancing…
Turkish Dam Theatens Historical Sites
Turkey plans to go ahead with a controversial dam that theatens to submerge important historical sites. “If the dam goes ahead the whole town will be submerged with the exception of the citadel, perched on top of the cliffs. Among the losses will be the Sultan Suleiman Mosque, the minaret of which is one of the most outstanding examples of early 15th-century Ayyubid architecture; the cylindrical tomb of Zeynel Bey, a rare example of Central Asian style architecture in Anatolia; and the tomb of the holy Imam Abdullah, grandson of Cafer-i Tayyar, uncle of the prophet Mohammed, a shrine visited by about 30,000 Shia pilgrims each year.”
Brits Drop Stolen Art Database
“The British government has quietly dropped plans for a database of stolen art and antiquities, although this was a key element in helping to enforce a new law. The Dealing in Cultural Objects Act came into force at the beginning of 2004, and the government then advised dealers that consulting the projected database should be part of the “due diligence” process, to help establish that they were not knowingly handling tainted objects.”
Looking In On Captive Writers
Three writers are spending a month locked up together while they write. “Architects and designers created three studio “pods” for the writers to live and work in – an indoor “treehouse” with grass on the roof, a high-tech Japanese-style angular box with rice-paper walls, and an open-plan space made of boxes and movable walls that can be hoisted with ropes and pulleys. The writers are allowed to use a roof terrace and other areas within the gallery for 90 minutes a day – they must clock out on time cards. There are no locks on the doors, but they are encouraged not to leave the building.”