After recent cuts in state funding, Colorado has fallen to last in the US among the states. “Arts funding in the state dropped from $1.86 million in fiscal 2001-02 to $1.04 million for 2002-03, according to the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies. That represents about 25 cents per resident. The national average is $1.22, down from $1.42 in 2001-02.”
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All Things Familiar – That Public Radio Sound
Why do the voices on National Public Radio sound so much alike? “If you listen to a lot of NPR, you realize how similar it all sounds: no matter who is talking, or what they’re talking about. There’s a simple reason for the homogeneity…
Blocking Your Digital Future
The movie industry is close to telling cable TV operators to block recording of movies. The technology is aleady in place. “Hollywood’s new strategy is likely to affect everyone from computer-adept users of online music services to the average couch potato. The digital future, hailed as more convenient and of higher quality than the scratchy, fuzzy analog past, is coming with multiple strings attached.”
American TV Losing Dominance Overseas
The dominance of American TV is waning, though still a major force in countries like Australia. “In the US, television executives have attributed the worldwide decline of US programs to several factors, not least their cost. Industry executives say the American studios priced themselves out of the market just as competition began to heat up abroad from newly privatised commercial broadcasters and cable and satellite networks.”
La Scala Proposes Controversial Expansion
In the midst of a major (and controversial) renovation, Milan’s La Scala proposes a big expansion, including a series of new theatre spaces. “It is an odd time to propose an expansion, with budget deficits at the major opera houses and shrinking public funding for culture in Italy. And indeed, the motives behind the project may not be purely artistic. Local observers believe that La Scala is collaborating with real estate developers who seek to enrich themselves at the ultimate expense of taxpayers.”
Solzhenitsyn Suffers Stroke? Heart Attack?
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, 84, has been in a Moscow hospital since the end of December. He is said to have “spent the past few days there and was ‘already feeling better’. Conflicting reports from Russian news agencies had suggested the writer was suffering from – variously – a stroke, hypertension or angina.”
Why Are We Stuck With Poor Old Washed-Up CD’s?
“To the new generation of music artists and engineers, ‘CD-quality sound’ is an ironic joke. In recording studios, today’s musicians produce their works digitally at resolutions far beyond the grainy old CD standard. To make the sounds listenable on antiquarian CD players, the final mix is retrofitted to compact disc specs by stripping it of billions of bits’ worth of musical detail and dynamics. It’s like filming a movie in IMAX and then broadcasting it only to black-and-white TV sets. It doesn’t have to be this way.”
Holiday Surge Boosts Smithsonian
Smithsonian Museum attendance was down 16 percent in 2002, continuing a post 9/11 slump. But, says the museum, things might be getting better – attendance increased by 53 percent in November and December compared with the same months a year earlier.
Great Ideas Chasing A Flawed Concept
Ada Louise Huxtable has studied plans proposed for the World Trade Center site. “The conceptual daring and advanced technology of these schemes – the sheer drama of their bold images – brings cutting-edge creativity to New York, where it is long overdue. Buildings like these have already changed skylines from London to Hong Kong. This is the architecture of the 21st century, and about as good as it gets. That’s the good news. The bad news is that these provocative and beautiful presentations have also given us a stunning demonstration of how to do the wrong thing right.”
The Mahler Man – First Amateur To Conduct The Vienna Phil
Gilbert Kaplan has netted a number of firsts in his conducting career. “As well as being the first amateur to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic, Kaplan is also the conductor with the smallest repertoire in history.’ Mahler 2nd. “Now 61, he made his conducting debut at the age of 40 with Mahler Two” and he’s conducted it 100 times. Now “he is in Vienna for four days to make a recording of the work for Deutsche Grammophon with the orchestra that Mahler himself conducted.”