“New York Times dance critic John Rockwell kicked up a minor tempest recently when he wrote, of ballet dancers, that ‘looks do count: for dramatic verisimilitude, for romantic illusion, for box-office excitement.’ That such self-evident assertions would register as controversial says something about where we are these days in our unsettled view of beauty. The dissonance in the culture runs deep. We tend to look at exquisite dancers, fashion models, gorgeous movie stars, even particularly lovely people in daily life as a slightly different species, part idols and part freaks who occupy an alternative plane… We see beauty as a trick in some ways, a genetic ruse paired with the money, privilege and private trainers to cultivate it.”
Blog
Annapolis Symphony Chooses New Music Director
After considering 200 applicants over two years, the Annapolis Symphony has chosen Jose-Luis Novo as its new music director. Novo “currently serves as music director and conductor of the Binghamton (New York) Philharmonic. He’ll keep that post, along with the Annapolis job.”
Are The Nouveau Riche Ruining The Art Market?
Art has always been a popular preoccupation amongst Wall Street’s more successful high rollers, and a new generation of newly minted billionaires is making a significant mark on the collecting scene. In fact, some of the most aggressive specimens amongst the new breed of collectors are willing to pay almost any price for a piece they’ve set their sights on, and that is leading to accusations that such newcomers are creating an artificially inflated market for high-end art, and purchasing works more as trophies than anything else.
African FilmFest Looks For Some Hollywood Glitter
“This week, Africa is holding its version of the Cannes Film Festival… in the capital of Burkina Faso, one of the world’s poorest countries. Le Festival Panafricain du Cinéma de Ouagadougou (FESPACO) screens nearly 200 films, many of them made on budgets no more than the cost of the Versace dress that Halle Berry wore on Sunday. FESPACO is the biggest and most prestigious film festival in Africa, but it faces a problem moviemakers here would like to solve: a distinct lack of participation from African-Americans in Hollywood.”
Can The Buying Power Of Women Save Broadway?
“It’s no secret women buy more theater tickets than men. During the 2003-04 season, 63 percent of the Broadway audience was female,” but historically, Broadway hasn’t made many special attempts to tailor its productions to the specific interests of women. That’s starting to change, though, as adolescent girls become an increasingly devoted audience, and women continue to ramp up their buying power as a whole.
For Some Real Fun, Try Putting Ulysses On ‘Shuffle’
“This week the South Huntington Public Library on Long Island, New York, became one of the first public libraries in the country to loan out iPod shuffles. For the past three weeks, the library ran a pilot program using the portable MP3 devices to store audio books downloaded from the Apple iTunes Music Store. They started with six shuffles, and now are up to a total of 10. Each device holds a single audio book.” The library owns several low-cost iPods, and is saving money by downloading the audiobooks rather than purchasing them on CD.
How To Attend A Film Festival In Your Underwear
You needn’t brave any huge crowds or gaggles of paparazzi staking out the 15th annual Cinequest Film Festival in San Jose this week in order to get your fill of the fest’s 200 featured films. “The Cinequest event is an independent film festival with a digital twist. Commercial-free, DVD-quality downloads of many of the festival’s feature films are available for online viewing… The festival expects 60,000 flesh-and-blood visitors this year, up from 54,000 last year. Organizers expect more than 75,000 movie downloads during the festival.”
Perhaps They’re All A Bunch Of Godless Heathens
Christian rock is hot these days, with touring bands strumming for Jesus at sold-out arenas and stadiums across the US. But in San Francisco, the country’s fourth-largest city, the audience for Christian rock is so small that the tours don’t even bother to stop there. This is a city that is not used to being ignored by any slice of the American culture pie, even if the values of said slice seem a bit at odds with San Francisco’s classically leftist vibe. The irony is that the Bay Area actually helped jumpstart the Christian music revolution a couple of decades back.
Making A Case For Arts Funding In Mass.
Arts advocates in Massachusetts have staged a rally at the state capitol to demand that the state’s arts council be restored to full funding after two years of draconian cuts. Massachusetts’s annual spending on the arts has dropped 56% since 2001, as lawmakers struggled to balance the budget. Meanwhile, demand for state grants is way up, with local arts councils receiving proposals totalling four times the amount of money available.
And Coming Soon, The NY Phil Plays Ringtones!
Movie music has long been featured in the concert hall, with the lush scores of John Williams and the jazzy instrumentals of Henry Mancini dovetailing nicely with much of the classical repertoire. But video game scores? Believe it or not, game companies are hiring composers to write serious music for their epic adventures, and orchestras are beginning to program them. Is it a gimmick designed to attract new audiences? Sure. Does the score to Final Fantasy VI stack up to Beethoven? No. But the concerts have been a hit, especially with young people, and no one needs to tell American orchestras how hard it is to snare that particular demographic…