The BBC has hired prominent writers to write first-parts of stories and will challenge listeners to complete them. “Eight novelists who will each write the first half of a short story for BBC Three. Their work will be published in a leaflet and distributed to coffee shops, libraries and on the internet. Readers will have six weeks to complete their chosen tale, with the winners showcased on BBC Three later this year.”
Blog
Virtually Yours – A Broadway Battle
Musicians are protesting the use of virtual orchestras on Broadway. Producers say the VO is a new instrument. Musicians disagree. “We think this machine is designed for the sole purpose of eliminating live music for the purpose of reaping profits. Their attempt to turn this machine, and I tell you that this is a machine, into an instrument is just another ploy. The synthesizer is a musical instrument played by a musician. A virtual orchestra machine is just that. I would not equate those two, ever.”
Sadler’s Wells Chief Quits
Jean-Luc Choplin has suddenly left his controversial reign heading Sadler’s Wells. “One might have felt that Choplin had an unrealistic sense of what could be achieved at Sadler’s, but he was nothing if not ambitious, a man of big ideas. It would be a shame to lose his continental sensibility altogether.”
Bombay Dreams On Hiatus For A Year
After a two-year run in London’s West End, the musical Bombay Dreams is closing… for a year. Producer Andrew Lloyd Webber wants to retool the show to bring it into line with the updating a new New York production is getting. “By the time the UK production closes, it will have been seen by more than 1.5 million theatregoers. It is due to embark on a national tour early next year, before returning to the West End some months later.”
Average Hollywood Movie Now Costs $100 Million
“The average cost to produce and promote a film in 2003 rose above $100 million for the first time ever with the average cost up 8.6 percent to $63.8 million and advertising and other expenses up a whopping 28 percent to about $39 million, according to the Motion Picture Association of America.”
The New Coke… But Then What?
“Coca-Cola is perhaps the most successful American brand ever. Each day, about 1.2 billion servings of Coca-Cola products are consumed around the globe. Coca-Cola is remarkably well-established in the world’s wealthiest consumer market. The company’s 2002 annual report noted that the average consumer in North America ‘enjoys at least one serving of our products every day.’ But once you have the entire population of the world’s richest nation using your product at least once a day, what do you do for an encore?”
Not All Instruments Are Created Equal…
So what do musicians in other orchestras think of violinists in a German orchestra demanding more pay because they play more than other colleagues? “It’s a completely fatuous argument – and I’m not just saying that because I’m a piccolo player. That line of reasoning doesn’t apply in any other world. Certainly not in the sports world. In an American football team there’s a guy who just comes on to kick goals, and he works for maybe a total of one minute in the whole game, but he gets paid just as much as the rest of the team. Maybe even more, if he’s good.”
Opera – What About The Language?
“Opera sung in the local language is becoming increasingly incomprehensible. Is it because in the age of the surtitle we’ve stopped listening for the words? Or are international casts to blame, for mumbling in every language?”
The Lomax Legacy
“The lifework of the late legendary American folklorist Alan Lomax has been acquired by the American Folklife Center in the Library of Congress… Lomax, who took his first folkloric steps at the library in the 1930s, recorded and collected indigenous music, dances and stories from this country and others. He was especially fascinated by the idea that a culture’s music or way of dancing speaks to its very core. He marveled at the relationship of one people’s music to another’s and he tried to break down musical expression into what he called ‘cantometrics,’ a quantifiable set of attributes such as tones, beats, phrasings.”
They’re Worth How Much? Well, Give ‘Em Back!
“Two foundations set up by the late Lord Beaverbrook are claiming ownership of two paintings at a New Brunswick art gallery named in his honour, saying they’re too valuable to remain there. The Montreal-based Canadian Beaverbrook Foundation and its British counterpart have an appraisal report from Sotheby’s auction house that suggests two unnamed works among the 200 in the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton should be displayed elsewhere.” But representatives of the gallery don’t want to give up the paintings, which they say were a gift to the province, and accuse the Beaverbrook estate of trying to reclaim the paintings because the family is in financial trouble.