Conductor David Robertson is on many people’s list to land the directorship of a major American orchestra. Indeed, critics added his name to the list for several high-profile orchestras in the past few years. “I find out about these things in the newspapers. I found out recently that there was an orchestra I refused, which was rough, because I was never asked. It’s an interesting thing, where people seem to know more about potential posts than I do. It’s nice that my name comes up, but I look a little bit like the perpetual bridesmaid.”
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How Music Was Born In America
“The saga of American music in the 19th century is a tale of outsized personalities, showdowns and rampant can-doism. The American myth has much to do with raising yourself by your own bootstraps, and that is what American music did in the 19th century: beginning with mostly amateur fiddlers, fifers and bawling congregations, ending with some of the best orchestras and opera houses anywhere.”
Booming Aboriginal Art Market
Australian aboriginal art is hot. “Thirty years ago Aboriginal work was hardly recognized as art. Painted tree bark and ritual stone and wood objects, spears and clubs tended to be lumped together with stuffed koalas and wallabies in the ethnographic sections of Australian museums; Aboriginal art was never displayed in the same spaces as work by white artists. Less than 20 years ago you could barely give it away. People just didn’t take art made by Aboriginal painters seriously. But at our sales in July we’ll have people from all over the world bidding hundreds of thousands of dollars for art you could have bought for hundreds in the 1970’s. We’re estimating a total sale value of more than $3 million.”
Laugh Track Inventor Dies
The man who invented the laugh track for TV shows has died at the age of 93. “Charlie Douglass was working as a technical director for live TV shows in the early days of the industry when he came up with the idea of developing a ‘laugh machine’ to enhance or substitute for live audience reaction. He called his first invention the ‘Laff Box’ and it became the basis of a lucrative family business.”
Pachelbel And The Gang – Is This Really The Most Popular Music?
Is it really possible that Brits’ taste in classical music is as bad as the annual Classic FM hit parade vote would indicate? “Is it really possible, I wonder, that millions of Brits really believe that Howard Shore’s music for ‘The Lord of the Rings’ is the greatest piece of classical music of all time? And will I have to listen, yet again, to Rachmaninov’s super-saccharine Piano Concerto No 2, in C minor (that’s the music from ‘Brief Encounter’)?”
The Video Orchestra
This fall the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra will mount video screens on either side of its stage. The video presentations will accompany all of the orchestra’s “Musically Speaking concerts. “The screens will be used to show live close-ups of the conductor and soloists. With wall-to-wall dreamscape visuals accompanied by an atmospheric soundtrack, the VSO’s experiment will venture beyond the live footage to include a visual script with images of featured composers and the people and places that inspired them.”
Libeskind’s Spiral Now Seems Inspired Choice For V&A
When it was first proposed, architect Daniel Libeskind’s post-modernist “spiral” addition to the Victoria & Albert Museum was derided as symbolizing all that is wrong with contemporary architecture. But now Libeskind’s been embraced in New York for the World Trade Center site, his idea for the V&A is seen as inspired. And now the fundraising gets going in a big way…
Did Harry Potter Save British Tourism?
Culture minister, Kim Howells has honoured the Potter books and films for their outstanding contribution to English tourism, recognising the part they have played in boosting the country’s image abroad. “Many visitors cite the film as a direct reason for visiting Britain. “We [the British Tourist Authority] went to America just after foot and mouth, and brochures that detailed Harry Potter locations were snapped up – we couldn’t print enough. Thousands of people have been inspired by the British actors and venues chosen in the Harry Potter films and the magical descriptions on each page of every book.”
Berliners Stand Mute As Past Is Ripped Down
Over the past ten years half of Berlin has been thoroughly transformed. Do Berliners have any feelings for their older buildings? If so, they “never even raised their voices when a precious building was torn down by the wrecking ball to make room for a new one. There also was no outcry, just some rather quiet outrage, when the city senate approved the demolition of Admiralspalast, the last building on Friedrichstrasse – across the street from the train station – which still recalls the 1920s, when this street was home to one of the capital’s entertainment districts.” What is the point?
Beethoven 9 For Sale
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony could be the world’s most famous piece of music. “Next month, when it is auctioned at Sotheby’s, a copyist’s manuscript of the work, replete with Beethoven’s last scribbled revisions, is expected to fetch more than any manuscript of classical music has done before. If the ninth symphony is the most powerful symbol of absolute music in the classical music canon, it is also the most politicised work of all time.”