Seattle’s KING-FM radio has been one of America’s few commercial classical music radio success stories. but in the past year the station has said goodbye to some long time hosts and some listeners are wondering what’s going on with their station…
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The Wrong Way Opera Company
For a year, a young opera entrepreneur has been trying to set up a small company in Winston-Salem, hoping it would become the nation’s “premier African-American opera-training company.” But a series of missed commitments, broken promises and misunderstandings suggest the fledgling enterprise might never get off the ground…
Guard Pleads Guilty In Dali Theft
A Staten Island correction officer has pleaded guilty to involvement in the theft of a $250,000 Salvador Dali painting from Rikers Island jail. Under the terms of the plea agreement, Timothy Pina, 45, will be sentenced to five years probation and will resign from the Department of Correction.
Birth Of An Opera
In Detroit a new opera is taking shape. Composed by Richard Danielpour with a libretto by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison, “Margaret Garner” is undergoing workshops where it is being refined…
Study: Music Lessons Boost IQ
A new study shows that children who study music score higher on IQ tests. The University of Toronto study also tested students who studied drama and found an increased IQ but not as big an improvement as in those who studied music.
The Shostakovich Question
For 25 years Solomon Volkov’s purported memoir of Shostakovich has been debated by critics. Some are tired of the debate, and look for the book to convey greater truths. But this isn’t right, writes Alex Ross: “It isn’t enough for the memoirs of a major artist to have an ambience of authenticity. A book that subjected Picasso or Joyce to such manipulations would never have made it to publication. For some reason, though, music is treated as a childish realm in which fables serve as well as facts.”
Former BBC Chairman Blasts Blair
Greg Dyke speaks out about Tony Blair’s campaign to influence the BBC’s coverage of the Iraq war. “In an explosive autobiography which returns the corrosive issue of Iraq to the heart of political debate, Dyke reveals that Tony Blair wrote an unprecedented letter to him and Gavyn Davies, the former BBC chairman, trying to force the corporation to change the tone of its coverage.”
How Tabloids Took Over Pop Culture
TV news, reality shows, pop magazines – they’re full of stuff that was formerly the domain of the supermarket tabloid. “Our world has been tabloidized. Where once tabloids occupied a fantastic fringe of pop culture, they now are at the center of pop culture.”
Battle For The (Political) Soul Of PBS
“Public television — home of Big Bird, “Frontline,” and Jim Lehrer — has traditionally been a lightning rod for conservative complaints about liberal bias. But these days it is the left that is unhappy with the programming mix and fretting about a right-wing conspiracy.”
Mozart In Lead Weights
Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart tries some theatrical takes on the composer – in this case, Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker. “The dance language of de Keersmaeker’s piece, which is severely limited, ranges from shards of classical ballet that appear warped in their execution—inadvertently, I believe, for lack of expertise in that department—to motions suggesting jungle animals, as if to imply that human passions, even when sung about with infinite delicacy and sophistication as they are in Mozart, have to do with the primal and the wild.”