Bill Kling is the man behind Minnesota Public Radio, the broadcasting juggernaut that is, by its own admission, hoping to change the landscape of public broadcasting across the country. Once a mild-mannered regional network best known for producing A Prairie Home Companion, Kling’s MPR has become the 800-lb. gorilla of the industry, acquiring competing stations like a for-profit company would, and expanding its reach well outside the Upper Midwest. Whether these are positive or negative developments in the genteel world of pubic radio depends entirely on whom you ask.
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Hiding In Plain Sight
A life-size statue which has stood for 500 years in a small town in Southern Italy has been identified as the work of Renaissance master Andrea Mantegna. It had been believed that none of Mantegna’s sculptures were still in existence, but a staggering two decades of research by art experts uncovered the provenance of the statue, which was first noticed by a museum director in 1978.
China’s Architectural Revolution
As China has gradually transformed itself from a closed economy to a capitalist-Marxist hybrid, the nation’s urban culture has changed as well, as the architectural rebirth currently going on in Beijing and Shanghai demonstrates. “It is turning the country into the world’s most boisterous architectural funhouse. Not since its birth in the Bauhaus almost a century ago has the modern revolution raged as hot as it does in China today.”
The Quiet Conductor
Bernard Haitink is not a superstar in the way that Simon Rattle is, or even in the way that Riccardo Muti has become. But Haitink has quietly cultivated a reputation as one of the world’s top conductors, and the respect with which he speaks of the world’s great orchestras mirrors the love and respect musicians seem to have for him. Still, Haitink has strong opinions about the ensembles he leads, and his peers on the podium, and he isn’t afraid to express them.
Jazz Has A New Palace. Does Anyone Care?
Lincoln Center’s glittering new jazz center is impressive both acoustically and visually, but is that enough? “When the last sax had sounded and the last champagne bottle was drained, a quandary remained: Will the ‘House of Swing’ revitalize jazz, or merely embalm it?”
London To Blend Art, Science In New Center
“An extraordinary museum collection, which includes Napoleon’s tooth brush, Nelson’s razor, and a small piece of the 18th century philosopher Jeremy Bentham, will feature in a new centre for arts and science in London… The £20m centre is also to provide a permanent home for the 600,000 volume medical history library, the largest in the world outside the national medical history library in the US.”
Are Young Adults Exiting Stage Left?
“Is theater failing to attract a new generation of enthusiasts to replace those who, on the opposite end of the chronological scale, die off or become too frail to go out at night?” There’s certainly no question that the predominant audience at your average mainstream theater is decidedly, um, mature, but some in the industry insist that the overall audience has expanded, regardless of demographic shifts. Still, “in the decade between 1992 and 2002, the percentage of young people in the overall theater audience shrank significantly.”
The Rise of The Right-Wing Film Festival
“Conservatives do not have a reputation for making good documentaries, mainly because they do not have a reputation for making them at all.” But a fledgling movement is aiming to change that, as intensely conservative film festivals have begun to spring up around the country in response to the commercial success of left-wing films like Fahrenheit 9/11. Screenings frequently begin with group prayers and recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance, and the only thing the crowds seem to enjoy more than a good sympathetic portrait of President Bush is a film that carves up Michael Moore like a Thanksgiving turkey.
How To Sound Gay
It’s somewhat appropriate that, in a year when being gay became unavoidably, irritatingly “cool” in the pop culture sphere, the classical music world appears to be obsessing over the phenomenon of the gay composer. But some scholars are going well beyond traditional views of homosexuality, and are suggesting that the “American sound” created by composers like Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein is, in fact, the sound of a “queer sensibility” which is unique to gay composers. But can you really hear gayness in a piece of music?
Digital Film Takes A Big Step
A new holiday movie is quietly ushering in a new revolution in digital animation. The Polar Express was performed by real actors covered in motion sensors, whose movements were converted into animation in post-production. The result is a new breed of film blurring the line between live-action and animation, and “from a technical perspective it could mark a turning point in the gradual transition from an analog to a digital cinema.”