An ambitious initiative which would have established a dedicated fund for the arts in Northeast Ohio failed at the ballot box in Cleveland on Tuesday. The tax levy was designed to make up for a critical lack of arts and cultural funding in the region, but organizers had a difficult time selling the notion of any new tax to the public, and many felt that the complexity of the funding structure made the initiative difficult to explain. The final vote tally was 54% to 46% against the ballot measure.
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Pittsburgh Cancels Children’s Fest
The Pittsburgh Children’s Festival has been scrapped for this year, after the city’s parks department said that it couldn’t afford to provide $60,000 worth of services to allow the event to proceed. The festival, which is put on by the Pittsburgh International Children’s Theater, costs $300,000 to stage, and the company has been unable to raise the money necessary to pick up the city’s portion of the budget.
The Overhyping of Lang Lang
This much we know to be true: Lang Lang is an unusually gifted young pianist. Also undeniably true is that Lang Lang was considerably overhyped by a classical marketing machine desperate to find the next Joshua Bell or Yo-Yo Ma to make up for the considerable losses the industry has been taking. But the backlash against the Lang Lang hype seemed to crystallize remarkably quickly last fall, in the wake of the pianist’s Carnegie Hall recital, and David Patrick Stearns is a bit suspicious of the motives of his detractors. Could Lang Lang’s race have been a factor? Or is it simply that he doesn’t fit into any of the pre-fab pigeonholes that music writers have set aside for hot young soloists?
Preserving The (Recent) Past
The future of the preservationist movement may be evident in a new trend which has seen several relatively “young” and unspectacular buildings saved from the wrecking ball by activists looking to preserve a piece of America’s architectural heritage. “Good contemporary architecture, always a precious resource, is often a victim of the rush to replace. Too new to benefit from the power of nostalgia but already old enough to look dated and shabby, buildings become especially vulnerable when they reach their mid-20s.” The trick, of course, is determining which examples of recent architecture are truly worth fighting for, but that anyone is fighting for them at all is an important step.
A Black Season Looms
“Conrad Black will loom large in the publishing industry this fall — not in his usual role as newspaper baron or even FDR biographer, but as the subject of two books examining the beleaguered lord’s recent trials with Hollinger International Inc., and his alleged millions of dollars in unauthorized personal payments.” The media baron, who is struggling to maintain his grip on what remains of his personal empire, is a classic example of the type of outsized personality which fascinates other media types, and the fact that Black has a history of being litigious only seems to be encouraging the reporters and authors eager to kick him on his way down.
SPAC: City Ballet Just Isn’t Cost-Effective
The recent decision by the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) to end its long association with New York City Ballet sparked much controversy in upstate New York, with everyone from SPAC subscribers to politicians questioning the direction the current board is taking the center. But board members insist that their decision to end City Ballet’s 3-week annual residency was based on long-term problems of cost and attendance which appeared to have no other solution. Even an infusion of cash from the state would likely not be enough to solve the cash-flow problem, and while SPAC’s board is reconsidering its decision, there seems to be a case to be made for the center’s dance needs to be filled by smaller, less expensive companies.
Barenboim in Chicago: Not Quite Dead Yet?
The musicians of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra are considering a vote of confidence in the leadership of music director Daniel Barenboim, who announced last month that he would step down from his Chicago post in 2006. If passed, the resolution would be a symbolic but powerful statement from the musicians that they disagree with members of the CSO’s management and board who have long been frustrated with Barenboim’s leadership and personal style. The idea for a musicians’ vote appears to have been born out of a conversation in which several musicians asked Barenboim to reconsider his decision to step aside, and Barenboim’s reply that he would reconsider only if a majority of the orchestra wished him to.
Waiting For The Conductor
So Kent Nagano is officially taking over the reins in Montreal. But his contract with the orchestra doesn’t begin until the fall of 2006, and he’ll conduct only two weeks of the 2004-05 season, due to Nagano’s prior commitment to Berlin’s Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester. Furthermore, Nagano is already speaking out on the necessity of a new concert hall for the MSO, a project which has consistently gone nowhere with the provincial government of Quebec. And how much does a top-flight conductor make these days, anyway? No one at the MSO is saying, but it’s a good bet that the orchestra’s annual budget (currently CAN$18-$19 million) will have to rise to meet Nagano’s salary.
Why Nagano Chose Montreal
“For clues to what Nagano brings the Montreal music community – beyond his world reputation as a nervy tightrope walker in stimulating musical climates – you have to examine his [25-year] relationship with the ragtag [Berkeley Symphony Orchestra.] For the youthful orchestra, comprising mainly part-timers, epitomizes his belief in total engagement with the music. Community means everything to him, specifically his beloved Bay Area, but also branching out into strong personal connections to ‘adopted’ cities where he tackles high-stakes environments with implacable cool.”
Swapping Files, Selling Music
In Austin, the home of the South By Southwest(SXSW) music festival, anyone with a wireless internet connection suddenly has 600 new songs in his/her online iTunes database, absolutely free of charge. SXSW organizers are providing the songs to the shared database as a promotional tool for this year’s festival, which runs March 17-21 and features some 1,200 acts. SXSW has been allowing listeners free access to its music for several years, and many see the wireless project as final proof that file-sharing is, in fact, useful beyond simply allowing consumers to steal music.