Last week, as if out of nowhere, Donald Gordon gave 20 million to be shared equally between the Royal Opera House and the Wales Millennium Centre. But why? “In the UK, Gordon is not known as a philanthropist. He has given money to Sadler’s Wells, Shakespeare’s Globe and the British Museum, but, he says, these donations were a matter of ‘a few thousand’ and he can’t remember what they were for. So why this unexpected and extraordinary gesture? ‘For the past few years, my major diversion has been the performing arts. Now I am hoping to make the transition from what they call tycoon to opera appreciator’.”
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Hamburg’s Pullback From Contemporary Music
German conductor Ingo Metzmacher is quitting as music director of Hamburg, and the move is seen as a pulling away oif commitment to contemporary music. “Just as William Forsythe took Frankfurt to the cutting edge of dance, so Metzmacher turned Hamburg into one of the most musically progressive cities in Europe. He introduced avant-garde 20th-century works into his concert programmes and scrapped the traditional New Year’s Eve performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in favour of a hugely successful series of concerts entitled Who’s Afraid of 20th-Century Music? Under his control, the Opera developed an international reputation for its radical redefinition of opera as hard-hitting music theatre.”
An Acoustic Appraisal Of Disney
Scott Cantrell writes that while Disney is good, Dallas’ Meyerson Hall still sounds the best of the new American concert halls. “Most of the 19th- and early 20th-century concert halls regularly cited as best for symphonic music – the Musikverein in Vienna, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Symphony Hall in Boston and Carnegie Hall in New York – are variations on a shoebox shape. Their acoustics tend to be described as ‘warm’ and ‘rich,’ but with ample clarity. ‘Full-bodied’ and ‘spacious’ weren’t adjectives that came immediately to mind at the opening of Disney Hall. What wasn’t there was the lower-midrange depth and visceral bass that you get in the great old halls.”
Digging Up Petrarch
“A team of 14 researchers exhumed the bones of the 14th century Italian poet Francesco Petrarch on Monday, in the attempt to uncover new aspects about his physical appearance and health.” The researchers plan to spend several months examining the nearly-intact skeleton, and hope to eventually use computer technology to create an approximation of what the poet’s face might have looked like. Creepy? Sure. But Petrarch is used to it: this is the fourth time his remains have been dug up by scientists.
Journalism as Relevant Art
When AP photographer Anja Niedringhaus snapped a photo of an Italian soldier standing in front of his bombed-out military barracks last week in Iraq, she created an image which would wind up on the front pages of more than 50 newspapers around the world. That unanimity of editorial taste proves once and for all that news photography can rise to the level of art, says Alan Artner, and Niedringhaus’ photo is a perfect example of the undervalued genre of war photography. “Some war photographs record destruction; others present human reaction. Niedringhaus’ combines the two. Or does it?”
File-Swapping Bad! (Unless There’s Money To Be Made…)
“The recording industry, it seems, doesn’t hate absolutely everything about illicit music downloading. Despite their legal blitzkrieg to stop online song-swapping, many music labels are benefiting from — and paying for — intelligence on the latest trends in Internet trading… One company, Beverly Hills-based BigChampagne, began mining such data from popular peer-to-peer networks in 2000 and has built a thriving business selling it to recording labels.”
Another Journalist Felled By The P-Word
When longtime Denver Post music writer G. Brown resigned his position last week after being accused of plagiarism in a review, he chalked the copied portions of the review up to sloppiness and the pressures of the daily deadline. But now, it appears that an even larger chunk of the review that cost Brown his job may have been pilfered from a New York Daily News story, and the whole incident has caused the Post to rewrite its internal ethics policy, to the dismay of some staffers.
Why Visionaries and Budget Sheets Don’t Mix
In 2002, architect Jean Nouvel was hired by Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Science Center to design a $90 million addition to its building. But “Carnegie Museums terminated Nouvel’s contract in May for failing to produce a scheme that could be built for that amount,” and withheld a chunk of the money it had promised the architect. A legal battle ensued, but now it appears that a settlement is near.
Kesey’s Prankster Legacy
The ’60s may be long gone, but don’t tell that to the Ken Kesey-inspired Merry Pranksters, who continue to traverse Northern California in a psychedelic bus, spreading beat wisdom and leftist radicalism wheresoever they find it lacking. Sure, the Pranksters may be a bit more, um, self-promotional than they once were, but Kesey, who died two years ago, still exerts a clear and powerful influence over the writers and poets who hung on his every word in life.
Controversial Collector McMichael Dies
“Some people just can’t take yes for an answer. Robert McMichael was one of them. The photographer/salesman-turned-art collector founded one of Ontario’s most popular cultural attractions, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg… But Mr. McMichael never could accept the consequences of his own generosity or the success of the gallery he created. Rather than celebrate the independence of the institution, he fought its evolution at every step.” McMichael died Tuesday, aged 82.