The musicians of the St. Louis Symphony have ratified a new contract with a 56-36 vote following a bitter 8-week work stoppage which was settled only after a local office of the National Labor Relations Board declared it an illegal strike. The new contract, which runs for 3-1/2 years, calls for modest pay raises, and also contains unusual signing bonuses for the players in place of more significant pay hikes. However, the conflict may not be over yet: at the same meeting in which they ratified the contract, the musicians overwhelmingly approved a vote of no confidence in SLSO President Randy Adams.
Blog
Reason To Believe
“The long awaited opening of the Detroit School of Arts could not have happened at a better time. Financial troubles have so dominated the news coming out of the [Detroit school] district that it’s a welcome change to have a development truly worth cheering. The DSA is a big, shiny six-story reminder of the sort of modern-thinking focus the district needs to embrace if it’s going to compete and survive… The [school] comes complete with talking elevators, an 800-seat auditorium, acoustically efficient vocal and band rooms, a similarly designed recital hall, radio and TV studios, not to mention tons of security and surveillance systems.”
Cincinnati To Build On Recent Fiscal Success
Months after announcing that it had paid off all its debt and balanced its annual budget, the Cincinnati Symphony is preparing to launch a major capital campaign which could reach $60 million. The CSO’s recent budgetary success has come at a cost – the cancellation of a popular summer festival – and balance was only achieved through extraordinary donations from an anonymlous supporter. The money raised in the campaign will go to bolster the orchestra’s endowment, which currently stands at $67 million.
Oscar Verdict: We Very Much Enjoyed Our Show, Mostly
Critics may have judged this year’s Academy Awards as a tiresome experience, but most of the Aademy itself was quite pleased with the revamped ceremony and its new host, comedian Chris Rock. Still, not everyone is happy: “The tweaks to the format–which involved bringing whole groups of nominees onto the stage and handing out some Oscars in the aisles of the cavernous Kodak Theater–have met with occasional disgruntlement. To some, it even seemed cruel to award Oscars in the aisles.” Rock also came in for some criticism from older members of the Academy, who felt that he didn’t show the proper reverence for the Oscar tradition.
Gehry’s LA Concert Hall To Get A Bit Duller
Los Angeles’s glittering jewel of a concert hall, as designed by Frank Gehry, seems to be glittering a bit too much. Disney Hall will undergo a $90,000 exterior renovation this spring to dull the sheen on a convex section of the building’s reflective outer walls, following extensive complaints from pedestrians and nearby residents about sun glare and excessive heat.
America’s Best Living Conductor?
Atlanta Symphony music director Robert Spano is one of the few truly successful American conductors left in the classical music world, and throughout his career, he has seemed to disregard all the hurdles traditionally placed in the way of stick-wavers of U.S. descent. Now firmly ensconced (and quite popular) in Atlanta, he is on something of a career high, forging partnerships with some of the top living composers in the world, and preparing to stand at the helm of Seattle Opera’s Ring cycle next summer. His success has not gone unnoticed, either, among top U.S. orchestras who anticipate music director vacancies in the not-too-distant future.
Unlikely Alliance – Hollywood And Conservative Christians
Conservative Christians have fought Hollywood over the years. But now Hollywood is finding support from these critics, who are “stepping up to back the entertainment industry in its moment of need: a high-stakes battle against online file-sharing services that has reached the nation’s highest court. File-swapping services make pornography easily accessible to minors, the social conservatives submit. The entertainment companies, meanwhile, blame sharing for declining sales and lost revenue. An unlikely alliance thus formed.”
Truth In Podcasting
Podcasting is the hot new medium. But whre is it going? ”As is the case with advertising on blogs, there seems to be some potential. However, it is too early to tell if there is a serious market opportunity there.”
Study: Canadian Artists Earn Less
Minority artists earn less than other artists in Canada, says a new study. “The October study revealed a huge growth in the number of artists in the country; in fact, the growth rate for the profession expanded at almost three times the rate of the overall labour force since the early 1990s. Despite the popularity of the career choice, the pay was significantly lower for artists than for the average Canadian worker.”
Bournemouth Works On A New Arts Complex
Arts supporters have a plan to rescue an underused concert hall in Bournemouth, England. “Ambitiously billed as ‘Bournemouth’s Guggenheim’ after the famous art gallery with sites in New York and Bilbao, the centre will provide a home for Dance South West, the Big Little Theatre Company, the education and contemporary music arms of Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, and the town’s music competitions festival among other creative activities.”