The Sydney Symphony Orchestra has been running in the black, but that doesn’t make its newest managing director’s job any easier. Times are tough in the orchestral world, and Libby Christie knows the perils of operating a business with high overhead and unpredictable income sources. What she doesn’t know much about is music. Christie is one of a new breed of orchestral administrators who are hired not for their love of classical music, but for their business savvy. Christie herself describes her expertise as being in “branding, marketing and top-line business development with potential sponsors.” That’s the kind of corporate-speak that often makes boards happy, but can make musicians nervous.
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Big Boost For UK Museums
“A cash injection of £2m has been handed to museums and art galleries to improve public access and presentation, the government has announced. A total of 14 institutions will receive grants from the government, with payments ranging from £3,000 to £400,000. The biggest recipient is London’s British Museum, which will get £400,000 to improve major exhibition spaces and environmental conditions.”
Does The British Museum Have Anything That Really Belongs To It?
The British Museum is facing yet another call to return an object that someone else thinks was illegitimately acquired, and this time, it isn’t the Elgin Marbles. The Egyptian government is requesting that the museum return the Rosetta Stone. “The artefact is one of the British Museum’s most prize pieces, helping to attract millions of visitors each year. The stone was discovered in 1799 at the mouth of the Nile and provided a key insight into hieroglyphics because it was accompanied by the Greek translation. The French yielded it to the British in 1801 and it has been housed in the British Museum since 1802.”
Painted Livestock Exhibit Called Off
An exhibit of live cows, pigs, and sheep which had been painted head to hoof by a British graffiti artist has been shut down early after the animals, which had passed muster with the UK’s SPCA, became “hot and distressed” from the combination of the sultry weather and human attention. Organizers insist that the early closure had nothing to do with the animal rights protesters who had descended on the exhibit.
All Right, Erik, You Got Us
A widely reported story that the rock group Metallica was suing a little-known Canadian band for trademark violation over the use of the chords E and F (in that order) has turned out to be an elaborate hoax by a Canadian satirist and aspiring musician. Erik Ashley got the story (very realistically masquerading as a news item on MTV’s web site) past dozens of radio news directors, the online news source Ananova, and (sigh) not one, but two ArtsJournal editors. The beauty of the hoax, of course, is that the story is preposterous, yet, given Metallica’s litigious history, entirely plausible as well. No word on whether Metallica plans to sue Ashley for defamation.
The Map Pirates
“Armed with nothing more than pencil sharpeners and baggy jumpers, Melvin Perry and Peter Bellwood plundered unsuspecting libraries across Europe, razoring thousands of priceless maps from medieval atlases.” How they did it, and why, is a fascinating and horrifying tale of grossly inadequate museum security, crooked dealers, and simple human greed.
No Pencils Required
The future of animation is here, and it is computer-generated. This is no surprise, of course: CG movies have been cleaning up at the box office ever since Toy Story, and cutting-edge companies like Pixar Animation have upped the technology ante considerably in recent years. But for those who were still hoping that old-school line animation and CG technology might be able to coexist in Hollywood, the current goings-on at Disney will be quite disheartening. “The company, whose very name is synonymous with cartoon castles and ink-and-paint dwarves, is going digital.”
No Such Thing As A Stupid Question
Have you always wondered what the difference is between a violin and a viola? Or pondered exactly who it is that has to completely overhaul a museum’s galleries between exhibits? Or puzzled over how exactly that dancer is able to hold that other dancer in the air by her big toe without either of them sustaining serious injury? Well, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is here to help: from now until August 1, the paper’s arts section is accepting all the questions about the arts that you’ve never asked for fear of sounding stupid. And they promise to answer them, too. Go on – you know you’ve got one…
They’re Old, But They’re Smart, Too
A new study by the National Endowment for the Arts finds that audiences for live classical music events grew slightly in the last ten years, but that a slightly smaller percentage of the public attended concerts than in 1992. “At 49, classical music audiences have the highest median age of any of the categories in the survey… Classical and opera audiences have also become more educated. About 85 percent of concertgoers had at least a partial college education in 2002, up from 77 percent in 1992.”
Why Most Companies Just Do Aida Every Year
“Presenting a new opera always comes with higher costs and higher risks than showcasing the tried-and-true. Even though the opera combines the familiar history of China’s Cultural Revolution with fictionalized events, Madame Mao remains an unknown quantity. The production, which employs eight dancers and elaborate costumes, has a budget of $1.5 million, half again as much as the Santa Fe Opera average.”