British violinist and conductor Iona Brown, who led the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields for decades, first as concertmaster and then as music director, has died at the age of 63. Brown, who also led the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra for a time, was renowned worldwide for her skills as a violinist, and blazed a trail for female conductors at a time when sexism was still rampant in the industry.
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Do Dogs Understand Language?
Ask any dog owner, and he’ll tell you: it’s not what you say to a dog, it’s how you say it, with your tone of voice the key to the dog’s understanding. But a team of German scientists and a border collie named Rico say different, and their evidence that dogs can understand language is compelling. Rico can fetch up to 200 objects by name, and can even figure out which object his master wants when confronted with a word he’s never heard. “Rico’s abilities seem to follow a process called ‘fast mapping,’ seen when young children start to learn to speak and understand language.”
Arrest in Saatchi Fire Case
There’s been an arrest in the investigation surrounding the warehouse fire that destroyed £50 million worth of art owned by the collector Charles Saatchi. The suspect, who has been charged with burglary and released on bail, is 23, and police are not saying much more than that at the moment.
Fundamental Questions
The London International Festival of Theatre is taking an interesting angle this season, conducting a citywide Enquiry on the very nature of theatre. Among the questions to be answered: What is theatre? What is it for? And why should we care, anyway?
More Calls For Scrapping Libeskind
The voices speaking out against the official plans for the WTC site are growing ever louder, and those calling for a strict rebuild of the original Twin Towers are gaining ground. The obvious argument is visceral, of course – you knock our buildings down, and we’ll just put ’em right back up! – but there is more to the increasingly popular movement than simple defiance. “We are replacing a symbol of world peace and human cooperation with a self-absorbed salute to America,” says the man who is leading the charge, adding that Daniel Libeskind’s design is “tone deaf to a monumental degree.”
WTC Arts Tenants Announced
“Pledging to reinvigorate cultural life in Lower Manhattan, state and city officials yesterday announced the selection of arts groups devoted to dance, theater and drawing, along with a museum celebrating freedom, as the cultural anchors for the World Trade Center site… The Signature Theater Company, the Joyce Theater, the Freedom Center and the Drawing Center” were the lucky winners in a process which had been roundly criticized by arts leaders as insufficiently open to public scrutiny.
BBC Needs More Money, But Doesn’t Dare Ask
A former BBC chairman is complaining that the license fee which the government collects from every UK household with a television set in order to fund the public broadcaster is insufficient. But Gavyn Davies doubts that the BBC will dare ask for an increase when its charter comes up for renewal in 2006, for fear of running afoul of public sentiment regarding the license fee.
Stern Costs Clear Channel $1.75 Mil
Clear Channel, the largest radio broadcaster in the U.S., has agreed to pay $1.75 million in fines over on-air comments by shock jock Howard Stern which the FCC has deemed “obscene.” The amount being shelled out is a record in the industry, and while the FCC is trumpeting the settlement as a “victory for the American public,” it is likely that Stern will use the occasion to take his bombastic campaign against President Bush and the conservative-controlled FCC up yet another notch. Clear Channel dropped Stern from all of its stations earlier this spring.
Avenue Q, Direct To Vegas
Avenue Q, which cleaned up at this year’s Tonys, is buying the typically lucrative national tours that follow Broadway success, and taking up residence in Las Vegas. “Working with the Las Vegas impressario Steve Wynn, the producers of “Q” plan to open around Labor Day 2005 in a new $40-million theater built especially for the show. The production had planned to follow the lucrative tradition of touring nationally, hitting major markets like Chicago, Atlanta and Los Angeles.”
Composer Kramer Dies
“Jonathan Kramer, a composer and musical theorist, died on June 3 at Mount Sinai Hospital. He was 61 and lived in Manhattan. The cause was leukemia, said his wife, Deborah Bradley. Mr. Kramer, a professor of composition and theory at Columbia University, wrote eclectic music that often drew from sources as disparate as Baroque music and jazz.”