“After 20 or more years of consolidation and commercialization, the book publishing industry and most of its components — authors, agents, publishers, marketers and retailers — have resigned themselves to the businesslike, margin-driven culture of the industry today. Even if some still pine for the gentlemanly days of gentlemen editors, most are too busy trying to get the attention of Oprah Winfrey or NBC’s ‘Today’ show to waste time on nostalgia.”
Blog
Rethinking Prokofiev
“I think we’re on the threshold of a renaissance in Prokofiev’s reputation. Five years after his death, there was a Prokofiev memorial evening at the Moscow Conservatory where they spoke of his work only in superlatives. After that, his reputation came to be overshadowed somewhat by that of Dmitri Shostakovich. Now it’s coming to be understood that Prokofiev and Shostakovich were equally important; that if Shostakovich was Michelangelo, Prokofiev was Leonardo da Vinci.”
British Orchestras – Where Are The Women?
So the Vienna Philharmonic has hired its first woman player. Britain has little to be smug about on this issue. “A random sample of five British symphony orchestras suggests that gender ratios vary wildly: the Hallé and the BBC Symphony may not do badly (the Hallé has 45 men and 38 women; the BBCSO 55 men, 37 women), but orchestras such as the London Philharmonic and Bournemouth Symphony trail, splitting at 52-23 and 45-26 respectively. And the London Symphony Orchestra, widely regarded as being the country’s most successful, has 77 male members to 22 female. When you start looking at how many women occupy principal positions within the sections, the disparity looks even greater.”
English National Opera Cuts Chorus
The English National Opera is in deep trouble. In its latest move, the company proposes to cut a third of its chorus. “The drastic cut comes a week before the company, which is at least £1.2m in the red, puts a radical restructuring before the Arts Council in the hope of a “once and for all” bail-out. With a showdown with the orchestra looming, and vote of no confidence yesterday in the management by the singers, their union refused to rule out the threat of strikes.”
Does Pop Music Cause People To Kill?
So rap music is responsible for gun violence in the UK? If that’s true, what about all sorts of other music and pop influences? “What is concerning is that, in focusing on hip-hop and gun crime, our great and good are overlooking myriad other horrors caused by pop music. Gun culture is only the tip of a vast iceberg of malaises for which pop is responsible – an iceberg upon which the ship of state might very well founder beyond salvage.”
Institution On The Edge
The Royal Ontario Museum is undergoing a massive reinvention. But “move inside and dig around for a couple of weeks and you discover an institution at a dramatic point of transformation, teetering on the brink of either spectacular triumph or spectacular failure. Curators decry their inability to fend off embarrassing professional gaffes, and tensions are running high as they contemplate the implications of the museum’s dramatic building program.”
True Lies – The Novelist’s Responsibility
Do novelists have a responsibility to make their fiction true? That is – is it permissible to change historical dates of events to fit the stories you tell, even if they’re the historical dates or events aren’t “accurate”?
Opera Babes – Music Vs Image
Sony is counting on big sales by the Opera Babes to revive its classical division. “The act carries an us-against-the-world whiff of female empowerment. Some might think the message is undercut by the chests and cheekbones poking out from the CD booklet, and the slinky skirts and animal-print outfits they model in the many photos.” Perhaps the marketing is overwhelming the music?
Random House Ousts Editor
Random House has relieved Ann Godoff of her “duties as publisher/editor/patron saint of serious writers.
To some, Godoff’s send-off signals another loop in the downward spiral of literary publishing; to others it’s strictly a business decision – the division under her guidance was not making enough money.”
Yerba Buena Director Resigns
“John Killacky has resigned as director of San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts after six years. Since becoming the Yerba Buena center’s executive director in 1997, Killacky has consolidated the institution’s local and national reputation as a showcase for adventurous visual and performing arts and for community involvement.”