The Chicago-based Poetry Foundation has finally announced a plan for how it will spend the $100 million bequest which was dropped in its lap two years ago by pharmaceutical heiress Ruth Lilly. The foundation’s new initiatives will include a national study to determine current public attitudes towards poetry, an “online, electronic anthology of poetry, available to the public at no cost,” and the creation of two new annual cash prizes recognizing overlooked poets and humor in verse.
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Going Back To The Drawing Board
Mark Hanson took over as president of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra in January 2004, and it didn’t take him long to decide that what the financially strapped organization needed was a completely new way of doing business. Whereas previous administrations tried to patch deficits by dipping into the endowment, and sought to downplay the importance of dramatically slumping ticket sales, Hanson is apparently seeking to face the MSO’s problems head on, and in public. Still, that means more deficit spending for the next couple of seasons, and an uphill battle to convince local donors that the symphony is worth their investment.
Infighting In Melbourne
The city of Melbourne doled out nearly AUS$3 million in arts grants this past week, but controversy is brewing over the way the money was shared amongst the city’s cultural groups. “While 109 organisations and individuals from almost 300 applications shared in an annual funding pool of more than $1.5 million, six major Melbourne arts organisations – the International Arts Festival, the Fringe Festival, the Comedy Festival, the Film Festival, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Circus Oz – shared $1.4 million in triennial funding.” The funding decisions left some of Melbourne’s smaller arts groups gasping for financial breath.
Decker Out At National Building Museum
“Howard Decker, the knowledgeable, affable chief curator at the [Washington, D.C.-based] National Building Museum for the past four years, abruptly resigned this week. His last day at the museum was yesterday.” Decker’s departure, which appears to have been amicable, was apparently precipitated by the desire of NBM executive director Chase Rynd to reorganize the museum’s management structure. “Rynd explained that he wants to replace Decker with a curator who is not ‘overly burdened with administrative tasks’ and who takes direct charge of certain exhibitions.”
Seattle’s Schwarz Dismisses His Concertmaster
The concertmaster of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra has been fired after 20 years at the helm, apparently at the behest of music director Gerard Schwarz. Ilkka Talvi, who has filed a grievance contesting his dismissal, was apparently the victim of a clause in the SSO musicians’ contract which allows the concertmaster to be dismissed at the will of the music director, even as the rest of the orchestra’s musicians are protected by a tenure system.
A Tough Year For A Local Legend
Seattle Symphony music director Gerard Schwarz has always been a master of public relations, and his two decades in the Pacific Northwest can attest to his staying power. But this has been a year in which Schwarz’s abilities as a conductor and leader have come under fire: he was all but dismissed from the directorship of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic last month, and at least one prominent critic has suggested that his recently-ended 17-year tenure at the helm of New York’s Mostly Mozart festival was tired and unimaginative. Still, Schwarz remains the face of classical music in Seattle, and so far, says Melinda Bargreen, he has weathered every storm with aplomb.
Electoral Distraction Tactic #467,323
“President Bush made only one reference to Hollywood in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention on Thursday night, and it was almost in passing, but he hit the moviemaking community where it lives.” In one sense, it’s merely a case of one candidate taking advantage of an easy target set up by his opponent. But the Kerry/Hollywood flap has proved to have legs as a political story, and may serve to highlight a larger clash of values, between what the GOP sees as the conservative “heartland” and what Democrats see as the star power of the mainly liberal world of big entertainment.
Laughing All The Way To The Box Office
The creators of a new satirical film called The Yes Men are making a name for themselves as the leaders of a new generation of political pranksters. And while harassing Republicans at a convention, or free-traders at a seminar, may not qualify as genuine political discourse, it’s a great way to sell movie tickets.
Republicans And NYC Artists: Worlds Apart
With thousands of Republican conventioneers flooding the streets of Manhattan this past week, a cynic might have predicted that it would be a slow week in the New York art world. The cynic would have been right: one gallery, owned by conservatives from Georgia, held a blowout party for Senator Zell Miller, but other than that, the city’s galleries and museums were left out in the cold by a political party which is increasingly cut off from the art world. “While there were 4,853 delegates and alternates at the convention, only 133 delegates and their family members checked in at a desk set up in the [Metropolitan Museum of Art’s] lobby to offer them special tours.”
Bribery: The New Scalping?
So you want to get into the hottest show of the summer, but you don’t care to camp out in a 3-day line or spend hundreds on scalper tickets? No problem: just spend a few minutes scouting the folks taking tickets at the gate, pick a target, and see where a well-placed $50 bill will get you…