Toronto is becoming more like New York and Tokyo every day, and not in a good way. Canada’s largest city has lately been showing an alarming affection for the big urban design idea of plastering every available surface with advertising and calling it architecture. “In Toronto, which has spent the last decade hovering on the verge of bankruptcy, public space has come to be viewed as a way to make money. The price of selling the city is a growing sense of civic irritation, not to mention alienation. It boils down to one question: whose city is this anyway?”
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France’s New Choral Craze
“Singing, like most social activities in France, is driven by the whims of fashion. Suddenly, it has become le dernier cri de tout Paris. There is talk of young execs switching their gym cards for lunchtime choir practice. Parents are reported to be moving children to schools with better sol-fa teaching. The French Institute of Choral Art, with some 280,000 choir members, has been swamped with new applications. Choir practice is becoming to bourgeois Paris what the book group is in suburban London. The cause of the singing craze is a low-budget local film which, to industry astonishment, out-grossed Harry Potter, Spiderman and Shrek 2 across France, selling nine million tickets and 1.2 million soundtrack CDs.”
Well, This Explains The Sudden Run On Saffron Fabric
The artist Hargo, of Somerville, Massachusetts, may not have Christo’s cachet or financial wherewithal, but that hasn’t stopped him from piggybacking on the attention being paid to the better-known artist’s “Gates of Central Park”. In fact, Hargo’s “Somerville Gates,” unveiled in the artist’s apartment (and on his web site) this week after a day-long installation bear a striking resemblance to the much-larger New York version. But Hargo hastens to point out the difference in the visions of the two projects. For one thing, Hargo will be accepting donations to defray the costs of mounting his gates: that cost, by the way, is $3.50…
Finalists For Booker’s First International Lifetime Prize
“Nobel laureates Saul Bellow, Gunter Grass and Gabriel Garcia Marquez were among 18 finalists announced Friday for the first ever Man International Booker Prize, a lifetime achievement award worth around $115,000.”
Hockey & Haydn: Civic Assets That Come At A Big Cost
What does the work stoppage at the St. Louis Symphony have to do with the cancellation of the National Hockey League’s season? “Symphony orchestras and hockey teams have a much higher profile than their market clout would otherwise warrant… For orchestras and hockey teams are both considered civic assets, evidences that a community is sophisticated and ‘major league.’… Consequently, there are more and more orchestras and more and more professional hockey teams in smaller communities whose resources are insufficient to sustain them in difficult economic times.”
World Music Through Downloading
Downloading may be killing the rock star, but it’s doing great things for world music in the US. “Before the digital revolution, the cross-border import of indigenous music was inefficient, cost-prohibitive and logistically challenging. The market for some content was too small for major labels to justify importing it through the usual channels, so the music generally could be found only in specialty stores — which are not always opposed to selling pirated material. But legitimate online music services are beginning to feature larger selections of world music.”
The Bigger They Are, The Harder They Fall
“In Hollywood, movie projects are assembled – and unraveled – every day. But the sudden collapse of a high-profile film only days before shooting is set to begin still gets the town talking. Fox Searchlight, News Corporation’s art film unit, was topic A for many in the film business this week, as the thriving ministudio – on its way to the Oscars with a best-picture nomination for its film Sideways – watched a big-star vehicle aimed at next year’s awards season suddenly collapse in Australia.”
Taking The Classical Road Less Traveled
Joanna MacGregor is not your typical classical concert pianist. For starters, she completely rejects the notion that concert music is superior to other genres. “One critic has described her as ‘exhilaratingly, recklessly democratic’ in her musical tastes, because the London-born pianist has no qualms about mixing musical genres in unconventional and sometimes unlikely ways.” But don’t call her concerts “crossover”. MacGregor’s programs may mix a few musical metaphors, but never in a way that demeans the intelligence of either the music or her audience.
What’s Next In Chicago?
As the Chicago Symphony prepares to bid farewell to Daniel Barenboim after next season, a lot of questions about the future remain unanswered. The first unknown, of course, is the identity of Barenboim’s successor, and as usual, the CSO is keeping a tight lid on speculation. But almost as important is the orchestra’s overall model for future success: “with attendance flat at 82 percent and an accumulated deficit of $19.4 million gnawing on the bottom line, the CSO, with its 2005-06 season, will introduce two new series in an effort to make its concerts more inviting to a larger audience.”
It Does Say “Novel” On The Cover, Right?
“Art experts and conservative clerics are holding an unusual ‘trial’ in Leonardo da Vinci’s hometown aimed at sorting out fact from fiction in the book The Da Vinci Code after many readers took the smash hit novel as gospel truth… The novel’s contentious allegations — namely, that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and sired a bloodline — have provoked unprecedented protest among Roman Catholic and Protestant conservatives.” The trial is being organized by the director of a Leonardo da Vinci museum, and is being backed by several Catholic officials,