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Hollywood’s One And Only Head

“To say there was only one Edith Head is an understatement. As the movie industry’s most well-known costume designer (her career spanned 1923 to 1982) Head worked on more than 750 movies, received 35 nominations and won eight Oscars – more than any other woman. For 44 years, she was the fashion queen of Paramount Studios’ design department. And she ruled her empire with a royal fervor. In a world where the Hollywood power brokers were men, Head proved to be one tough cookie, staying on top of her field with cunning, ruthlessness and skill.”

Authors To Rice: Calm Down, They’re Only Readers

Last month, author Anne Rice took on the amateur critics who had been trashing her latest novel on Amazon.com, calling their negative comments “libel.” It was an unusual if not unprecedented move, and other authors are making it clear that Rice crossed an invisible line with her rant. “I’d be more worried if I impressed a moron than if I made one unhappy. And on Amazon… it’s usually clear within a sentence or two which side of the intelligence fence the commentators fall on.”

Starting Off With A Bang

Levine and the BSO pulled out all the stops for the maestro’s debut, performing Mahler’s monumental “Symphony of a Thousand”, which requires a mind-boggling 328 musicians. Richard Dyer liked what he saw. “[Levine’s] conducting was undemonstrative, but vividly detailed and obviously inspiring. Only a little of it was invisible weaving; most of the time his baton sliced through plenty of space, and decisively… There was an occasional rough edge or sloppy entry in the orchestral playing, but an edge-of-the-chair intensity and excitement carried all before it.”

Another Audubon Controversy

The Audubon Quartet is making headlines again, three years after the group was dismissed from the faculty of Virginia Tech in the wake of recriminations and lawsuits stemming from the group’s decision to split with its first violinist, David Ehrlich. The Audubon has continued to perform with a new first violinist, ever as Ehrlich has continued to challenge the group’s right to perform at all. Now, Ehrlich has been suddenly and unexpectedly rehired at Virginia Tech as an “outreach” coordinator, and the music faculty are furious.

A Cheaper (Better?) Piano?

The piano is 300-year-old technology. So can it be improved? Made more cheaply? An engineering professor is looking in to it. “Is there some material other than wood that will produce the dulcet sound of a Steinway without costing a mint? Can we figure out a way of constructing the keyboard-action mechanism (the keys striking the strings) so that it doesn’t take an army of craftsman to put it into place? Can you change the shape of the piano and still allow it to resist the 20 tonnes of pressure the wires exert? Can piano wire be made differently?”

A Jazz Beachhead

Will Lincoln Center’s new jazz temple revive interest in the art form? “No one will doubt the scope and ambition of the venture, which marks the first time a cultural center has been conceived from the ground up to honor jazz, a music now virtually ignored by the country that invented it. Whether future generations will look upon the grand edifice as a turning point for indigenous American music or a glorious last stand for an art form that’s slowly slipping from public consciousness (at least in the U.S.), Jazz at Lincoln Center clearly showed no hesitation in making its plans.”

The Mozart Of Painting (Or Is It Just Hype?)

Meet the art world’s hottest young artist: “Within a week of her most recent exhibition, she had been filmed by more than 10 TV crews, received calls from David Letterman, Ellen DeGeneres and Oprah, and been labelled a ‘world-famous Abstract Expressionist’. But the artist herself is said to be oblivious to it all. She is, according to those closest to her, ‘kind of reclusive’, ‘very sensitive’, ‘temperamental’ at times, and extremely loath to talk about her work.” And she is… four years old!