Competitions for composers are a difficult thing. How do you declare a “best” piece? Based on what? On the other hand, winning competitions is the only way many composers can get recognition for their work…
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Another Who-Was-Shakespeare Book
“The life and works of a man whose life is so plain and whose works are so fancy produces the kind of book that belongs less to a scholarly genre than to a performing genre, a hoop for a scholar to jump through when he no longer has anything to prove, as Lear is a role for an actor to jump through when he has done all the others. To the long run of such life-and-works books, the Harvard professor Stephen Greenblatt now offers his own reading.”
Edinburgh Museums See Big Attendance Increase
Edinburgh’s museums saw a huge increase in visitors this summer – a 24 percent increase…
Mummy Of The Scream?
“An Inca mummy kept in a Florentine museum might have been a source of inspiration for Edvard Munch’s painting “The Scream,” an Italian anthropologist claims.”
Spielberg Gets Legion Of Honour
Filmmaker Steven Spielberg has been awarded France’s highest civilian honor. “He was made a knight of the French Legion of Honour to recognise his work fighting hatred and intolerance. President Jacques Chirac said Spielberg’s holocaust film Schindler’s List ensured that past atrocities were remembered along with heroic deeds.”
In Search Of A Hot Pre-Fab
Shelter Magazine runs a competition to design and build a pre-fab house that really works. “The results are in, and they are decidedly mixed.”
Chicago Jazz Chooses Faddis
“In a bold move, the Chicago Jazz Ensemble — one of the nation’s leading jazz repertory bands — is expected to engage the brilliant trumpeter and widely admired bandleader Jon Faddis as its artistic director, replacing the late CJE founder William Russo.”
Disney Could Lose Mickey Mouse In South Africa
If Disney loses a case in South Africa contesting rights to the song The Lion Sleeps Tonight it might have to give up numerous trademarks in South Africa.”Relatives of the song’s original composer, Solomon Linda, say they are entitled to $1.6m in royalties from the track, used in The Lion King. If Disney loses the case, it may have to sell over 240 trademarks, including Mickey Mouse, to pay the family.”
Ballet Problem – Where Are The Women Choreoghraphers?
Where are the women choreographers? “Is it possible that in an art form driven by feminine ideals, women haven’t made nearly the gains of their sisters in business and politics? If Cinderella wants to be a choreographer, is she more likely to encounter a glass ceiling than a glass slipper?”
Building Support For The NEA, One Vote At A Time
National Endowment for the Arts chairman Dana Gioia has spent the last year building political support for his agency, one politician at a time. “Conservative support for the agency is among the little-noticed political developments of this election year. In January President Bush asked Congress to increase the endowment’s budget by $18 million for the 2005 fiscal year, the highest percentage increase in a quarter-century.”