“Gregory Mitchell, the actor who suffered a heart attack Nov. 11 during a performance at the Kennedy Center, died yesterday at Washington Hospital Center… Mitchell, 52, collapsed while onstage with Mikhail Baryshnikov in the drama Forbidden Christmas, or the Doctor and the Patient during the second of its six-performance run. After a doctor in the audience attended to him, Mitchell was taken to George Washington University Hospital and later transferred to Washington Hospital Center.”
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If It Ain’t Baroque…
The eminent baroque ensemble Apollo’s Fire is teaming up with the Cleveland Instutute of Music and Case Western Reserve University to provide leadership for CWRU’s pre-professional baroque orchestra, which is designed to give special training to music students with a particular interest in period performance.
Art? What Art? Let’s Dance!
“At a growing number of museums around the country, party nights aimed at younger patrons are bringing in everything from D.J.’s spinning house music to double-Dutch jump-ropers (at the Seattle Art Museum’s Thursday After Hours series, which sometimes lasts until midnight)… Museums have plenty of reason to look for younger crowds. According to a survey sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and conducted by the Census Bureau, the median age of Americans who visited art museums rose by five years, from 40 to 45, between 1992 and 2002, reflecting a sharp drop in museum visits by people 18 to 34.”
MoMA Should Have Gotten More For Its Money
New York’s Museum of Modern Art has always viewed 20th-century modernism as the core of its collection, and the museum’s new home pays appropriate tribute to that tradition. But while the collection is virtually beyond reproach, Michael Kimmelman sees many flaws in the new MoMA’s finished product, beginning with the somewhat boxy and cold feel of the architecture, and exemplified by the “appalling and cynical” $20 admission price. An additional disappointment is that “the Modern is clearly still not sure what to make of the art of the last 30 or 40 years – what its role and mission, as well as its taste and judgment, are in an art world that has changed and expanded.”
This ‘Modern’ World
MoMA may have a new look, but patrons will have no trouble finding their familiar old favorite works, and that brings up an interesting conundrum for an institution purporting to be about all that is new. “Art museums have come to be petting zoos. They are places where strange, wild, difficult, potentially dangerous objects are brought, stripped of their histories and confined to ‘neutral’ settings for safe observation. This way, objects start to change, to lose their volatility, their bite and sting and, at the Modern, their modern-ness. And what does modern-ness mean, applied to art? A zillion things.”
How Dare They Rehearse At A Rehearsal?
The Boston Symphony has a long tradition of offering the public access to occasional “open rehearsals,” and the events have historically borne less resemblance to an actual rehearsal than to a casual performance. In fact, on the occasion that a conductor or soloist has actually attempted to use these scheduled services to work on a piece of music at some level of detail, the BSO has been guaranteed to receive multiple letters of complaint from those patrons in attendance. Still, new music director James Levine is making it clear that a rehearsal is a rehearsal, and he has no interest in plowing through repertoire for its own sake.
KC Arts Center Stalled Over A Garage
“[Kansas City] officials, in a dispute that affects other downtown developments, are at loggerheads with backers of the proposed performing arts center over the location of a promised garage. The clash has complicated the city’s effort to acquire land controlled by backers of the performing arts center for a $50 million ballroom planned for the Bartle Hall convention center, city officials say. And Kansas City Ballet officials say that until the flap is resolved, their plan to build a $25 million home on the east side of Wyandotte Street between 16th and 17th streets is on hold.”
It Ain’t Over Yet In Philly…
The musicians of the Philadelphia Orchestra have delayed yesterday’s scheduled vote on their new contract agreement, with some musicians saying they felt “rushed” by the process. Another musicians-only meeting is scheduled for today, and the committee that negotiated the deal is still confident that they can resolve and outstanding questions surrounding the contract.
Pittsburgh Symphony Salaries To Take Huge Leap
The Pittsburgh Symphony has not been on the radar screen of those watching orchestral negotiations this year, which makes sense, since the PSO’s contract won’t expire until fall 2006. But the musicians of Pittsburgh have been watching the contract battles quite closely, because their own deal contains an unusual clause, under which they will be rewarded for their willingness to take recent pay cuts with a whopping 23% raise in the final year of their current contract. That figure comes from calculating the average of the pay scales of the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, and Philadelphia Orchestra, and will take the Pittsburgh scale to $102,403.
A Match Made In Balanchine Heaven
Peter Boal may have George Balanchine to thank for his new job as artistic director of Pacific Northwest Ballet. While Boal has never led a company before, he is known for his devotion to the choreographer, which meshes well with PNB’s tradition. “One of the things that attracted Boal to PNB was its strong commitment to Balanchine. His ballets constitute about a third of its repertory, the largest commitment of a major company outside New York City Ballet.”