The Boys Choir of Harlem is an American success story. “The journey from church-basement dream to established institution with a $3.8 million annual budget is an astonishing achievement.Today there are 622 students, male and female (the Girls Choir of Harlem was founded in 1993). Each year, about 2,000 young people audition for about 150 places. All of the students take classes in music history, theory, voice, and an instrument, in addition to the full New York state-mandated curriculum; classes continue during tours – some teachers come along, some students keep up through the Internet. Ninety-eight percent of the graduates attend college. The academy has inspired similar schools in Chicago and Detroit.”
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Dance In The Desert
Once again, Arizona State University’s dance program has been ranked in the top ten dance study programs in the US. “A student can concentrate in performance, choreography, dance education or what we call dance studies, which can be anything from ethnographic study of dance to a combination of dance and business.”
Rochester Philharmonic In Financial Difficulty
The Rochester Philharmonic is projecting a $550,000 deficit this season. But in the short term, finances are even worse. “An estimated cash shortage of up to $900,000 this fiscal year could jeopardize the RPO’s ability to pay its musicians and vendors as soon as next month. The RPO faced a similar budget squeeze last year, but $350,000 in administrative cuts paved the way for a modest surplus. This year, however, the ensemble has little left to cut.”
What They Make – Arts Execs Are Well Compensated
A survey of executive salaries in Minnesota arts organizations reveals that top executives are well-compensated. “Some who watch the nonprofit world wonder why arts administrators tend to out-earn their peers in other nonprofit categories such as those related to health, social services and education. In the Twin Cities in 2001, median pay packages for directors of top arts and culture organizations was $273,125, compared to $177,708 in education, $215,557 in health care and $123,984 in social services. ‘These jobs are much tougher now than they were. It’s difficult to recruit good, experienced people for director positions, and for critical marketing and development jobs. This narrows the pool and increases the salaries of really good people.”
Autry, Southwest Museums To Merge After All
Last month the Autry and Southwest museums in Southern California decided to delay their plans to merge. But after lengthy negotiations, the two museums have decided to go ahead with the plan. “To cover costs of the merger, Autry officials say they plan to raise $100 million over the next five years, including $38 million to boost the center’s endowment and an estimated $15 million to restore and renovate the Southwest buildings.”
San Francisco’s New Asian Palace
This week the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco opens in a new home. “The building – the old Main Library in Civic Center – has been deftly restructured inside by Italian architect Gae Aulenti, famous for having transformed the 1900 Gare d’Orsay train station in Paris into the tremendously popular Musee d’Orsay. The overall cost will be $160.5 million, and it gives the Asian Art Museum the kind of prestige and stature to which it has aspired.”
Just What Is “Asian” Art Anyway?
“At its crudest, ‘Asia’ as a concept betokens the ‘orientalism’ that Edward Said famously redefined in terms of Western colonizers’ need to understand themselves by contrast with a mysterious – potentially dehumanized – other. The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco has a collection deep and extensive enough to awaken glimmers of imagination for the complex material culture of Eastern societies across six millennia.”
Much To Offer
“Modern architects need to develop a more imaginative bag of tricks when they are working alongside the ornate architecture of the past. The Asian Art Museum’s new glass-enclosed light courts are dramatic, but they shunt the grand beaux-arts spaces of the old building onto a sidetrack. The rhythms of the original structure are largely ignored by the new, when they should have blended.”
You Can’t Legislate Manners, But Really…It’s A Concert…
Between ringing cell phones, program rustling and yahoos screaming bravo before the last notes have a chance to die out, concert manners seem to be at an all time low. Peter Dobrin offers a code of conduct he wishes could be adopted by audience members. “It’s obviously time to find some pleasant way of reminding visitors how to act. This is not one of those disapproving tsk-tsk reprimands. I’m not in favor of tradition for tradition’s sake. I’m not trying to make anyone feel bad. On the contrary, I’m trying to make everyone at the concert feel good.”
Serious Magazines Get Circulation Boost
“Concerned over terrorism, a looming war in Iraq, and a sputtering economy, magazine readers are showing a new gravitas, boosting the circulations of text-intensive, highbrow magazines such as the Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s and the New Yorker. Serious magazines saw circulations soar in the second half of 2002, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. The Atlantic Monthly, published 10 times a year, saw a 5.1 percent increase to 529,834, and single-copy sales spiked 52.4 percent, the second-largest percentage increase in newsstand sales for general-interest magazines behind celebrity suck-up Us Weekly.”