“A Canadian grocery magnate handed out a $50,000 contemporary art award yesterday to Vancouver artist Brian Jungen… The jury of curators from across Canada limited their selection to artists who were under 40 years old. The Sobey Art Award will be handed out every two years and is among the richest in the Canadian art world.”
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Orchestra Shutdowns Come To The Holyland
The increased violence and tension in the Middle East may now have killed off a beloved local institution: the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra has announced that it will shut down this weekend as a result of nonpayment of promised funds from the city and the Israel Broadcast Authority. JSO officials also accuse the IBA and municipal authorities of wanting to turn the orchestra into a political pawn.
No Shortage Of Cash In Boston
Chicago may be struggling, St. Louis and Toronto may have had near-death experiences, and Houston may be on the verge of an all-out labor war, but things are just dandy at the Boston Symphony Orchestra. As the BSO prepares to kick off its holiday pops season, it is pulling in the kind of ticket revenue which would be enough to fund some orchestras for a year without a single dollar donated. Never an organization to underestimate its own importance, the BSO’s managing director brags, “There are (smaller) orchestras that for the entire 52-week year will have not even $10 million of sales, We do almost half of that in basically three weeks. We are the biggest orchestra operation in the world by a big margin.”
So Much for Greedy American Musicians
The musicians of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra have taken an unprecedented step in an effort to help the organization stay fiscally solvent, offering up $100,000 of matching money to be applied against donations from orchestra subscribers. The musicians originally had planned to donate the money to the PSO outright, but agreed with management that a challenge grant would offer greater opportunity to involve the public.
La Boheme Meets Moulin Rouge
If anyone can make a 19th-century opera relevant to young 21st-century audiences, you can bet it’s Baz Luhrmann. The Australian director behind Moulin Rouge, is using many of the same pyrotechnics and storytelling techniques of that movie in his new Broadway production of Puccini’s La Boheme. But Luhrmann insists that, despite the updated look of the show, he is against modernizing a classic operatic plot just to “be groovy.”
Destination Portland
While the number of 20-34 year-olds decreased in America through the 1990s, Portland, Oregon saw a gain of 45,000 young people in that demographic. The infux has helped transform the city. “The result has been a cultural flowering for the Rose City. Young visual artists, Web designers, filmmakers and animators, musicians, media specialists and entrepreneurs are starting a new generation of companies, organizations and events, not to mention clubs, lounges, coffeehouses and restaurants. What has lured this active, inventive age group to Portland?”
$86 Million In The Service Of Art
Largely overlooked when Ruth Lilly gave $100 million to Poetry magazine a few weeks ago was another one of her gifts – $86 million to the arts advocacy group Americans for the Arts. There’s been much speculation about what Poetry might or might not do with the money. But how about Americans for the Arts?
On Behalf Of All Directors…
Martin Scorcese’s Gangs of New York could be the most important movie released this year. Here’s why: Time was (back in the 70s) that directors were the main push behind what movies got made. Nowadays, a small number of A-list actors seems to call the shots. Scorcese’s $100-million Gangs is a director-driven project, and despite its long messy birth, if it sells, directors may get back some of the influence over what gets made…
The ABC’s Of Critical Writing
Judges who don’t read the books they’re pronouncing on, movie critics who don’t see the films they’re writing about… it’s the new form of criticism, writes Alex Beam. “I am partaking in a hot new reviewing trend: Abstinence-Based Criticism (A-BC). At the key moment of critical engagement, just say no. Resist the temptation! Why read the book, see the movie, or, for that matter, eat the food? I can do it from here!”
White Like Me
British theatre is an overwhelmingly white experience. “The facts are scandalous. Of 2,009 permanent staff in regional theatres, only 80 are from black and Asian communities; of 463 board members, only 20 are from what we term “ethnic minorities”. And Leicester Haymarket is the only producing theatre with a black artistic director, Kully Thiarai.” The Arts Council is working on some initiatives to help, but “the key question is whether these initiatives are enough to combat the racism – more, I suspect, a result of indifference than malice – that has become an entrenched part of British theatre.”