Japanese conductor Hiroyuki Iwaki and Japan’s NHK Orchestra will perform all nine Beethoven symphonies New Year’s Eve in a marathon concert. “Iwaki will conduct members of the NHK Orchestra, with other musicians, in a concert that begins at 3:30 p.m., and will likely last over six hours. There will be five intermissions.”
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Philly Mayor: The Barnes’ New Site
A day after finding out that the Barnes Collection will be allowed to move to Philadelphia, the city’s mayor announced the new Barnes site. It will be at the Youth Study Center, which is now the city’s juvenile detention center at the corner of 20th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. “The move to the Youth Study Center, however, has some complications. The city has already bought land in West Philadelphia to build a new juvenile detention center, but that new building won’t be ready to occupy until October 2007. The Barnes however clearly wants to start building its new museum much sooner.”
Hollywood’s Kranky Christmas
Time was when Hollywood made movies idealizing Christmas. Not anymore. “Nowadays you make fun of Christmas. I think it’s more current now to say that Christmas is this dreadful family occasion where relatives who don’t like each other come together and get drunk and start fighting. A lot of Christmas movies are rather like that.”
UK Freezes Arts Spending
English arts funding is being frozen through 2008, which means a net decline in cultural spending. “Based on a Treasury estimate of inflation at 2.7%, its grant will be worth £10m less in the financial years 2006-7 and £20m less in 2007-8, meaning a total real-term shortfall of £30m.”
Arts Funding Seesaw Bad For UK Arts
The British government’s arts funding plan is ill-advised. “Arts organisations were braced for a tough few years following the last spending review, but the decision to tilt the flow of funds so strongly from one sector (arts) to another (museums) goes against the grain. All arts and culture organisations ask for one thing: not bottomless pockets but reliable funding. Sudden sharp changes in who gets funds and who does not sets off a see-sawing of resources.”
UK Arts Funding Freeze Will Kill Momentum
Government plans to see a “4.6 per cent cut in support for English Heritage, an allocation for museums and galleries which falls far short of previous demands and budgets frozen in the performing arts. From heritage bodies, through theatre chiefs to museum directors, all expressed concern that the genuine progress of recent years would be stalled and potentially reversed by the deal.”
Arts Leaders Angry At UK Arts Funding Cut
Arts leaders reacted angrily to news that the British government intends to freeze cultural spending until 2008. This means a net decline in arts spending. “Nicholas Hytner, artistic director of the National Theatre, said he was mystified by the decision. ‘The achievements [of the past few years] will not be lost overnight; we will cope. But it is at the edge that has been most exciting and progressive that the arts will be forced to compromise’.”
South Africa Disbands Arts Council
South Africa’s Minister of Arts and Culture has dissolved the country’s National Arts Council. Based on consultations, he is “satisfied that the NAC as presently constituted has lost the confidence of the arts community and is not in a position to carry out the responsibilities assigned to it.”
Chaos Theory (It’s Safer)
What makes driving safer? Well yeah, better-designed cars. But better roads and street markings and traffic lights and speed limits and signs, right? Well maybe not entirely true. One traffic engineer says simplifying roadways – taking away traffic lights and restrictive signs might be a better way to ultimately improve the safety of our roads. “In the US, traffic engineers are beginning to rethink the dictum that the car is king and pedestrians are well advised to get the hell off the road.”
Making Up America’s Art
Improvisation is America’s great contribution to art – not just in music, but art and acting too. Marlon Brando, Charlie Parker, Jackson Pollock – these were the American originals. “Improvisation is America’s art, its self-expression – and its disaster.”