UK composer Peter Maxwell Davies recently made waves when he accused television’s addiction to pop culture of being one of the root causes of the decline of classical music. But the arbitrary setting of “cultural standards” like these drive some in the arts sphere up the wall. “There is as much rubbish passed off as a serious creative endeavour in high art as ever disgraces a TV screen… I like John Keats as much as I like Bob Dylan. I’m fond of cheap Hollywood movies and Matisse – is this allowed? – simultaneously. I can discuss any sept of the Marx clan, from Groucho to Karlo, you care to mention. In a few small areas of art and ideas I am almost, but never quite, an expert. I am also a disgrace, culturally speaking, and proud of it.”
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Recording Companies Rev Up For DualDisc
“Until a few years ago, labels automatically took their shiny bread-and-butter format for granted and all the way to the bank. Customers had few other options and rarely balked when list prices were raised. But the unlimited possibilities of music downloads have transformed the playing field, turning the glamorous CD into a badly aging star that needs a major face-lift. For a music business desperate to steer people into stores and away from illegal download sites, that cosmetic surgery couldn’t come soon enough. Infamous for infighting and contentious disagreements, all four major record labels are setting their differences aside and supporting DualDisc, a new format that they believe offers the best of the audio and visual worlds.”
The Lyrical Andrew Davis
Andrew Davis, 61, may be “the most forthcoming, honest and human conductor in the business. It may be the Brit in him (even the Financial Times called him “the quintessential English conductor”), but he politely and sincerely answers questions that other conductors would run from.”
Can Picture Books Teach Children To Read?
“Graphic novels for young adult readers have been popular for many years, but recently have grown from Spiderman and Superman into a global phenomenon of much more artistic and sophisticated products. Publishers have jumped on the lucrative bandwagon, as sales have mushroomed to meet the demand. It’s no surprise that kids who have grown up with a visual connection — TV, movies, videos and video games — also love graphic novels. Many young adult readers, in fact, prefer graphic novels to conventional books. Today all varieties of graphic books are available — original stories, biographies, and even the classics.”
Good Money After Bad?
Camden, New Jersey is a struggling city, plagued by poverty and violence and haunted by comparisons to thriving Phialdelphia, just across the Delaware River. Back in 1996, the state subsidized the construction of a major performing arts center inside Camden’s massive Clear Channel-owned Tweeter Center. But while the for-profit arm of the Tweeter has thrived, the non-profit arts center has been a dismal failure, and some are questioning the massive taxpayer subsidies that continue to be pumped into the project.
Is Literature The Unappreciated Stepchild Of The Arts?
Last week in Edmonton, the Grant MacEwan Author’s Award was handed out as part of the grand arts festival known as Alberta Scene. But those in attendance could be forgiven for having missed the awards ceremony, competing as it was with an orchestra, a blues show, a cowboy music performance, and several other distractions. It does seem to be a truism that writing is the branch of the arts least likely to draw a crowd, and “every serious writer knows what it’s like to read her words to an organizer, her smiling husband, that lost hobo with a crinkly Safeway bag and the other bestselling author on the bill.”
If You Build It, They Might Come, For A While
Orange County, California (just outside of Los Angeles) has a beautiful new concert hall, and big plans to make use of it. But will the public care enough to keep coming to the hall once the novelty has worn off? “Behind the scenes and off the record, the classical powers that be are worrying and wondering about the outcome… There is a great deal of casual interest in classical music here, but connoisseurship doesn’t seem to run deep.”
The Other New York
When most people think of New York, they’re really thinking of Manhattan, and that’s fine, since Manhattan is all exciting and trendy and stuff, but the fact is that there’s another borough of America’s largest metropolis that deserves equal attention, especially from those interested in the arts and culture. Yeah, it’s Brooklyn. Yous gadda problem wid dat?
It’s Sort Of A Cross Between Electronica and Teddy Ruxpin
“Circuit bending started about 10 years ago when a geographically diverse group of basement tinkerers began to experiment with soldering guns and the cast-aside first-generation electronic Christmas gifts of their childhood. They discovered that if you pop the top off anything that has a simple circuit board and makes a sound — an ’80s-era talking doll, for instance — you can hot-wire it and produce squawks that the manufacturer never had in mind, squawks that in some cases had never before been heard. United by the Internet, circuit benders started sharing notes and trading pointers, and now they’re a certified subculture.”
Seeking The ‘Classic’ Holmes
According to everything we know of the world’s most famous fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes died at the Reichenbach Falls in a desperate struggle with his nemesis, Professor Moriarty. But just as Arthur Conan Doyle felt compelled to resurrect his creation several years after killing him off, so authors postdating Doyle have found Holmes to be an irresistable character for their own work. Why the Holmes obsession? The simple answer is that we keep buying the new stories, and the latest writer to step into the post-Doyle fray, mystery writer Chris Carr, can actually boast of being officially sanctioned by the estate of Holmes’s creator, and says that he is determined to return the detective to the world that Doyle created for him.