Christopher Plummer “comes naturally to his noblesse. It has served him well. In roles ranging from the creepy von Trapp to a fantastically neurotic Iago to the crusading Mike Wallace in the 1999 film “The Insider,” he has consistently thrilled audiences with the kind of voice and bearing that used to be taken for granted in an actor. Still, for all its high-tone glories, his career — nearly 200 television and movie roles, by his estimate, and stage productions too numerous to count — has thrived on his eagerness to strip away that noblesse and reveal the human muck beneath, the rot in the royalty.”
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In Road Trip: Rattling Around In A BIG LOUD ROOM
Sam Bergman and the Minnesota Orchestra perform in Leeds’ Town Hall, and it’s a terrifying experience. “It’s a Big Loud Room, is what I’m saying here, and Big Loud Rooms (hereafter referred to as BLRs) are probably the hardest places for an orchestra to play, since we depend on our ability to hear each other to stay together. The overall sound of an orchestra playing in a BLR can actually be quite effective from the audience’s point of view, since the acoustic can obscure some minor mishaps which might stick out in a drier space, but from the perspective of a single musician, it can be just terrifying.”
The Marvelous McGuires
William and Nadine McGuire moved to Minnesota about 15 years ago, and have emerged as leading donors to the arts in the Twin Cities. “The McGuires’ burst of generosity just since July has left observers giddy: $10 million to the University of Minnesota, $10 million to the Guthrie Theater and $1 million to the Children’s Theatre Company. Other recent Twin Cities giving by the McGuires and their family foundation, for which details were not revealed, bring their total giving to more than $40 million, William McGuire said Thursday.”
Making A Case For The Arts In North Carolina
“One out of every eight people in North Carolina is a member, supporter or volunteer of an arts organization. The craft arts make about $538 million a year for North Carolina.”
Books – Growing On Internet Time
What accounts for the enormous explosion of book publishing in recent years? “There are many possible explanations for the Triffid-like growth of the book trade. You might blame the quest for the fool’s gold of turnover. You could point to the global expansion of the English language and the consequent search for new markets. Follow this logic and you could also cite the opening up of new independent markets in Ireland, Scotland, India and China, indeed virtually anywhere in the known world. Beyond the hectic traffic of the marketplace, the IT revolution has liberated the business from the restrictive practices associated with hot metal. The new technology has accelerated book production. It has also speeded up the editorial side.”
Celebrating The Out-Of-Tune
As rap music became more commercial, it sounded more produced. So in the spirit of “keepin’ it real”, many of today’s performers are eschewing the “fixing” of things like pitch and tone. And guess what? There’s a lot of offkey singing…
Sentenced To Listen – The Music We Don’t Like
Recently a Florida judge sentenced a man who was playing his music too loud to listen to opera. Andrew Mueller believes this is enlightened thinking: “It is time, surely, to update the legal code in this country, to enable judges to sentence the noisy to a punishment that fits their crime. Few things are as distressing to the spirit as music we don’t wish to hear.”
A Raphael Forgery, A Caravaggio Copy
“On Friday the National Gallery in London learnt that Raphael’s gooey Madonna of the Pinks was probably a forgery; meanwhile the National Gallery of Ireland spent the week rebutting accusations that its precious Caravaggio, a moody nocturne representing Christ’s arrest, was a second-hand Flemish copy, inferior to an original unearthed by a dealer in Rome. The reattribution wounded Irish national pride and the religious conviction that underpins it.”
A Transit Station That Soars
Architect Santiago Calatrava has a winner in the transit station he has designed for the World Trade Center site, writes Blair Kamin. “That design, unveiled last month and expected to be finished in 2009, seems destined to become the finest piece of architecture at ground zero, head and shoulders above the awkward “Freedom Tower” that resulted from the stormy collaboration between architects David Childs and Daniel Libeskind. The transit station will simultaneously provide a grandly scaled civic gateway to lower Manhattan and the kind of light-washed, cathedral-like public space that Chicagoans and other visitors rave about in Milwaukee.”
Wanted In Chicago – An Ambassador Of Music
Conductor Daniel Barenboim paid close attention to the music as Chicago Symphony music director. But he was unwilling to be the orchestra’s ambassador to the community. “In shirking the role of community ombudsman and de facto fundraiser that the CSO board had envisioned for Barenboim when large deficits are an almost yearly occurrence, he created an untenable position for the institution, in the view of the trustees. Rather than face compromise or divert himself from his main concern — making music — the controversial, 61-year-old musician chose a graceful exit.” So what kind of director does the famed orchestra need?