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Social Reporting, With Word Balloons

Comic artist Will Eisner, who died last week, was more than a pioneer of an underappreciated art form. He was, in his own words a “social reporter”, a politically engaged artist who made a point of digging out a side of modern reality that would otherwise have been hidden from much of the world. Furthermore, Eisner was notable for the longevity of his creative impulse – the work he created in his 80s was as dynamic and rebellious as the graphic novels that first made him famous.

Grand Opening Set For Baltimore Museum

Baltimore’s much anticipated new museum of African American art and culture finally has an official opening date, after months of delays and setbacks. The Reginald F. Lewis Museum will open to the public on June 25 as the second-largest museum of its kind in the U.S.. The state of Maryland will pick up the tab for 75% of all operating costs for the museum’s first year of operation.

Kentucky Opera Ditches Orchestra For Students

Kentucky Opera drops the Louisville Orchestra for performances of its next production in favor of using students from the University of Louisville. Why? The company explains that “scheduling conflicts made it difficult, if not impossible, to use the orchestra for this particular production, which involves parallel student and professional casts. When you are rehearsing two casts you have a lot of orchestral rehearsals, and there were several services where (the Louisville Orchestra) would be unavailable because of contractual restrictions.” But an Louisville Orchestra spokesperson expressed surprise at the decision…

Music Singles Surge On The Web

The single music track is staging a comeback – online. “Although sales of vinyl and CD singles declined again by 14% to 26.5m last year, more than 5.7m downloads were sold during the year. ‘We have already announced that downloads will soon be included in the official UK singles chart and had downloads been included in the singles figures for 2004, the market would have shown a 4% increase’.”

Gehry Works On His House

Finally, at 75, Frank Gehry is building himself a house. “It is the work of a man who has achieved a measure of inner peace – someone who no longer feels a need to rage against established institutions. Yet it is anything but complacent. Its lightness of spirit is a testament to Mr. Gehry’s creative stamina at a point in life when many architects of his stature are content to recycle well-tested formulas. If only as an example of his willingness to venture into unexplored territory, it will undoubtedly rank as one of his most important works.”

Reconsidering Kahn’s Roosevelt

In 1972, Louis Kahn designed a memorial to FDR on New York’s Roosevelt Island. It never got built, and now the city is considering another plan for the site. But “devotees of Roosevelt and of Kahn are hoping that it is not too late to reconsider Kahn’s 2.8-acre memorial as part of the 14-acre site. With renewed interest in the art of memorial-making (because of plans for ground zero) and in the work of Kahn (because of a film made last year by his son, Nathaniel), the time is finally ripe, they say, to realize Kahn’s plan.”

All-American Diva

“Renee Fleming is currently the Great American Soprano. Late-night television? Check. She recently made her second appearance on Letterman, singing three minutes of music by Handel (music featured on her latest recording). White House? She sang at a New Year’s Eve gala there in 1999, among other appearances. Major international events? She sang for Russian President Vladimir Putin and 50 other heads of state at the Mariinsky Theatre to celebrate the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg in 2003. Magazines? She’s on the cover of the current Town & Country, which dubs her ‘the down-to-earth diva.’ Oh yes, and she also sang, in the made-up language of Elvish, on the soundtrack to The Lord of the Rings.”

Opera And Film – A Match Yet To Be Made

“Where are the great films of opera? Yet to be made. The form has never conquered what might be called the tongue-and-teeth problem. While it makes perfect sense within the opera house that everything is sung, when transferred onto film, the opera illusion often breaks down. Suddenly one is wrenched from a world where it’s normal for people to say hello and good night and I love you in song into a world where you notice huge gaping mouths, swelling diaphragms, quivering tongues and glistening teeth. And even when the films are dubbed, and the singers attempt to look as if they’re speaking, there’s an uncanny sense that the voice is emerging from a hole not big enough to produce it.”

Pittsburgh Symphony Decides Against European Tour

For the second year in a row, the Pittsburgh Symphony has decided not to tour Europe. “The PSO never signed contracts for the tour — therefore it didn’t officially cancel — but the tour was listed as being in development for almost a year on the Web site of European concert promoter Hans Ulrich Schmid. It was to include stops in Italy, Slovenia and Austria.”