Disney Hall is an unconventional concert hall. So the organ designed for the hall should be unconventional too. Its builders “had to adjust the size, sound and volume of each of its 6,134 pipes to suit the acoustics of the four-tiered, 2,265-seat hall. They had to engineer a way to make huge display pipes in bizarre shapes, anchor them securely into the rest of the structure, and yet allow them to sound normally. And since earthquake faults run beneath downtown Los Angeles, they had to make the organ quakeproof.”
Blog
Are Big Publishers Bribing Bookstores For Better Shelf Placement?
“Major publishers are spending thousands of pounds every month on ‘sweetener’ trips for the retail chains on our high streets, in a bid to influence retail buying strategy. The entertainment budgets involved, which can be as much as £40,000 per trip, are aimed at ensuring increased orders for their books.” Smaller independent publishers are protesting.
The Soccer Bard
Jonny Hurst is the newly-chosen Bard of the Boots, or soccer “chants laureate.” Hurst beat 1,500 entrants for the post, more than 100 times as many as applied for Andrew Motion’s job (as British Poet Laureate) last time it fell vacant. Most of them, like him, not only sing chants but write them and try to get football crowds to adopt them. His brief is less onerous than that of the poet laureate, who is expected to produce poems about big public events, whether or not these are interesting. The chants laureate has to watch matches and compose a selection of chants reflecting key moments throughout the 2004-05 season.”
The Barcelona Makeover
“On Saturday, Forum Barcelona 2004 opened. It is a kind of four-month-long Expo with ambitious geopolitical themes, or, as it bills itself, a vast “meeting point for citizens of the world”. At its heart is the Forum building, a cinematic tour de force designed by the Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron. The building is also the fulcrum of an entirely new quarter of Barcelona on the coast north-east of Barceloneta and Port Olympic, the first remodelled, the second created, to coincide with the 1992 Olympics. When Forum Barcelona 2004 closes at the end of September, the city will inherit impressive new parks, yet another cleaned-up port and beach, concert and congress halls, public walkways, a new railway station dedicated to high-speed trains, clusters of new apartment blocks, an “e-city” of shiny office buildings dedicated to dotcoms and other forms of electronic enterprise, and yet another boost to its international prestige.”
Student Composers – Looking For Heroes
“Composers grow up with the idea that music is a game of heroes. In history books, they read that their forebears dazzled kings, electrified crowds, forged nations. Sooner or later, they come up against the disappointing realization that modern American culture has no space for a composer hero. That disappointment easily metastasizes into profound resentment, which no amount of success can dislodge. Indeed, the most famous composers are often the unhappiest.”
Petrarch Was A Woman (Or At Least His Bones Were)
The remains of what was supposed to be the poet Petrarch are instead someone else. “Analysis of a tooth and one of the ribs exhumed from Petrarch’s tomb in Arquá Petrarca, the village near Padua where the poet died in 1374, showed that they belonged to a man and a woman.”
The Indecency Watchdog And Its Agenda
The Parents Television Council spind out statistics about content on TV, and the FCC is listening. “Since the Super Bowl, the organization has taken to calling itself the nation’s most influential advocacy organization protecting children against sex, violence and profanity in entertainment.” But some say the PTC is ideologically tainted and that its data aren’t gathered scientifically. So why’s the FCC listening?
Wicked Gets 10 Tony Noms
“Wicked,” a quirky and fantasy-filled musical about those folks who live along the Yellow Brick Road, picked up 10 Tony Award nominations Monday. “Assassins,” the controversial Stephen Sondheim musical, followed with seven and four shows tied with six nominations apiece: “Caroline, or Change,” “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Avenue Q” and the Lincoln Center revival of “Henry IV.”
Natural History Museum: Where Are The Students?
The director of Britain’s Museum of Natural History says his institutions is threatened by the lack of students studying natural history. “Few university syllabuses cover systematics, the naming and classification of plants and organisms in which the museum excels. Potential recruits were further deterred by comparatively low salaries.”
Rowling Turns Down Charity Dance School
A kids’ ballet school in London hoping to stage a ten-minute performance based on Harry Potter characters was surprised to be turned down by the author. “We are delighted to hear of your pupils’ enthusiasm for the series but we should tell you that the rights in respect to a live theatrical or musical production are reserved to the author and are subject to a contractual hold-back with Warner Bros until 2007. It would therefore not be possible for you to continue with your plans at this time I am afraid. I am very sorry for this disappointing response.”