Pianist Alfred Brendel has given his last live-broadcast performance. It was at a Proms concert in London. The 73-year-old pianist played Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto – which he first played at the 1973 Proms.
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Hendra V Hendra – Court Of Public Opinion
In an article in The New York Times last month Jessica Hendra accused her father Tony, author of the best-selling spiritual memoir Father Joe, of molesting her when she was a young girl. “Since July 1, when The Times first published Ms. Hendra’s claims in a carefully reported 2,400-word story by veteran reporter N. R. Kleinfield that ran on the front page of the Arts section, a strange radio silence has set in.” But the book continues to sell.
Begone Doom-Meisters!
Gavin Borchert is tired of the deafening roar of doom and gloom about the state of classical music. “The audience is graying. Soon they’ll be dead, taking classical music with them unless they’re replaced, runs the conventional wisdom. But is this anything new? Why the panic? Was there some distant golden age when America’s concert halls were filled with teenagers? Isn’t classical music–or any art–something one grows into? Art rewards an attention span–it’s a game for adults. But the classical establishment would rather buckle under to our society’s market-driven credo: If white males aged 15 to 29 don’t want it, nobody gets it.”
Cover-Mel Is People’s Biggest Cover To Date
For what it’s worth (and we don’t suggest the cultural import), “Inside Mel’s ‘Passion,'” a March cover story, was People’s biggest newsstand hit in the first six months this year, selling more than 1.7 million copies.”
MAN: Taking Issue With A Collectors Group
AJBlogger Tyler Green agrees with Blake Gopnik that Washington DC needs a contemporary art center. But he takes issue with an idea floated by Gopnik for a local collectors’ collective. “Here are a couple problems with Gopnik’s idea: The art world is global, moreso now than ever, and his idea is based on a narrow, artificial, regionalist construct. Furthermore, Gopnik’s idea has nothing to do with art and everything to do with the mere geography of amalgamation. When the art world is becoming more interconnected, when group shows at even medium-sized institutions are filled with loans from two or three continents, why would we want something that is so internal, narrow and exclusionary?”
Yes To Washington Collectors…
Blake Gopnik’s idea for a collectors group, floated in the Washington Post, is an intriguing idea. “Of course, we’d all get into an immediate and fun argument as to what “contemporary” means. To Blake it’s obviously at least Arbus, Judd and Hirst – names that a lot of young curators and collectors may already find old and quaintly traditional — that’s what happens when one endorses the “new” rather than what’s good. To some, Arbus, Judd and Hirst may already belong in the company of the Matisses and Oldenburgs.”
Khouri Admits Some Lies In Book
Norma Khouri now admits that she fabricated parts of her best-selling nonfiction book, “Forbidden Love,” which tells of her friendship with a Muslim woman murdered by her father for falling in love with a Christian. The author says, however, that she did not lie about the woman’s existence or her killing.
Collectors, Please Share With The Masses
Critic Blake Gopnik outlines his plan for Washington, D.C., private collectors to exhibit the city’s hidden plenty, serious contemporary art, in what he’s calling the Washington Collectors’ Project. “As the first project of its kind, the WCP would also help to put the city on the art-world map, and would likely lead to copycatting elsewhere.”
The 9/11 Report As Literary Success
That “The 9/11 Commission Report” has become a best seller may not be solely due to its subject matter. Concerned that the American people be able to grasp its content, the book’s authors and editors paid attention to something neglected by many historians and countless writers of government reports: good, clear storytelling.
Phone Tone
With new ads on MTV promoting their cell-phone ring tones in advance of their new album’s release, the band Green Day is a veritable case study of the blurring between music and marketing. Ring tones are huge business in the UK – a new major source of revenue for the music industry. And now US bands are following: rap stars 50 Cent and Snoop Dogg have recently signed ring tone deals. Consumers seem to want the tones, and U.S. record companies, looking to boost sales, are eager to oblige.