Good news is hard to come by in the world of professional orchestras these days, but a huge sigh of relief could be heard coming from Louisville this weekend, as the Louisville Orchestra not only reversed its earlier position that bankruptcy was its only option, but approved a new three-year contract with its musicians. The contract is hardly a windfall for the players – it includes short-term wage cuts on already miniscule salaries, and trims weeks from the orchestra’s season – but with other troubled orchestras folding right and left, everyone seems to be at least satisfied with the result. As a direct result of reaching agreement on the contract, the orchestra will receive a much-needed $465,000 gift from a local developer who had been backing the musicians.
Blog
Not So Simple, Is It, Orrin?
“Earlier this week, Utah’s Sen. Orrin Hatch was caught using unlicensed software on his website. While his staff scrambled to fix that problem, Web surfers discovered his site had a link to a pornographic website… To be fair, the dirty link isn’t Hatch’s fault. A lot of expired domain names are being snapped up by porno sites.” Still, the two incidents are being gleefully cited by privacy advocates as further evidence that Hatch’s sweeping pronouncements about destroying the computers of illegal downloaders were ill-conceived and hypocritical.
UK Poet Laureate Tries Some Royal Rap
British poet laureate Andrew Motion wanted to do something special for the 21st birthday of Prince William. Remembering that the prince had spent some time learning the art of DJing, Motion decided to present the lad with a “rap poem,” ostensibly written with hip-hop sensibilities standing in for more traditional poetic style. The result is, well… embarrassing, according to most Brits who’ve read it. Amateur reviews posted to the BBC web site range from “excruciating” and “so terribly wrong,” to “The greatest argument for the abolition of the monarchy yet.”
On Being John Adams
John Adams is the most-performed living composer. “A sophisticated media handler, he has the tongue of a liberal intellectual and the laid-back aura of a hippie-turned-family man. He neither starves in a garret – orchestras are falling over themselves to play his scores – nor inhabits an ivory tower. Adams has kept in touch with what audiences like to hear. His music is the most beautiful, witty and technically assured of anyone writing for orchestra and opera house today. Listen to Nixon in China (1987), his first work to reach a wide audience, and the chances are you will respond to its subtly distilled rhythm and verve.”
Harry’s $100 Million Weekend
Harry Potter sells 5 million copies on its first day. “That is nearly twice as many as the estimated sales in 12 months of last year’s best-selling novel in hardcover, “The Summons,” by John Grisham.” The book even outsold the weekend’s blockbuster movie. “The five million copies sold, at retail prices from $17 to $30, surpassed the first weekend’s box office for the latest blockbuster movie, ‘Hulk,’ which sold $62.6 million in tickets in its three-day opening weekend.”
Opera – State Of The Art
Opera America meets in St. Louis to discuss the state of the art. “On one hand Opera America touts opera’s growth in the last 20 years: more than half of its 119 member companies were founded after 1970, and the organization reports growing and increasingly younger audiences. On the other hand the troubled economic climate has meant shrinking endowments, a falloff in donations and a consequent need for companies to rethink and even to restructure along conventional business lines.”
Venice – Politics Ruins The Day
The Venice Biennale has been compromised and ruined by politics, suggests Laura Cumming. “Fifty festivals, a golden year, but no birthday celebrations. The Biennale has become so worried about its inflated status as the Grandest Show on Earth that it wouldn’t dream of congratulating itself in these desperate modern times. It is still a multinational market, of course, where droves of dealers tout their artists to rich collectors and curators on the look-out. But the real world presses in, and the director, Francesco Bonami, wrings his hands.”
When Marketing Overruns Creativity
The Harry Potter books are deserving of attention. But the assault of marketing we’ve seen is way over the top. “When this level of marketing is applied to books or to sport, then it soon becomes impossible to distinguish between artistic considerations and financial ones. Rowling may say that she is secretive out of concern for her readers, but it is hard to separate this question of ‘intellectual property’ from concern for the ‘marketing campaign’. Then there is the squeeze effect on other books, other authors, other types of story, some of whom might merit a fraction of the Potter treatment, but who cannot get any place in that over-Pottered shop window. Small bookshops already look set to lose out because of the huge discounts being offered by major stores. Worse, hype like this sows the seeds of its own creative destruction.”
Iraqi Looting Count Climbs Above 6000
The count of items stolen from the Iraq National Museum is going up. The U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement say that as of June 13 “the official count of missing items had reached 6,000 and was climbing as museum and Customs investigators proceeded with an inventory of three looted storerooms. The June 13 total was double the number of stolen items reported by Customs a week earlier,” and the final total will likely be much higher.
Oppressive Ghosts – The Art Of Invisible Writing
“Most ghostwriters are broke, young journalists. They do it once, for the money. Perhaps twice for the show: to see how the rich and famous live. Most never do it again, because celebrities take as much pleasure in sharing the limelight (and the profits) as journalists do in restraining their opinions. Yet as long as there are people with stories to sell and no time or no talent to tell them, the products of such precarious partnerships continue to sell.”