Usually London is not where the major action in Old Master paintings is to be found. But last week’s sales racked up record after record. – The Telegraph (UK)
Blog
GAUGUIN BY A HAIR?
A New Zealand family contends it has a painting by Gauguin that the artist gave to one of their ancestors. Gauguin experts doubt the claim so the family is having four hairs embedded in the canvas tested for DNA to prove their case. – Wired
TIRED OF OTHER EUROPEAN FESTIVALS?
St. Petersburg’s White Nights Festival is the brainchild of Valery Gergiev, artistic director of the Kirov, based in the Mariinsky Theatre. The festival “provides an intensive dose of music and opera against the crumbling backdrop of Russia’s intellectual capital, at a fraction of the cost of rival events further to the west. Alongside War and Peace, one of this year’s highlights is Prokofiev’s opera ‘Semyon Kotko’, a four-hour epic with a difficult history that combines some challenging music with a heavy dose of Soviet-era ideology.” – Culturekiosque
“WORSE THAN THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION”
China’s booming tourist industry is threatening most of its precious cultural heritage and natural beauty, according to experts at a heritage preservation conference sponsored jointly by the government, the World Bank and UNESCO in Beijing last week. – China Times (Taiwan)
THE POLITICS OF GIVING MONEY AWAY
The MacArthur Foundation takes a breath to consider how it wants to spend its money. The so-called “genius” grants “symbolize how we would like to be known in the world – as a place that pays attention to releasing the potential of people.” – Chronicle of Higher Education
FIGHTING THE SAME OLD
It seems the more conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt likes a piece of music, the less he’s inclined to perform it. He’s a sworn enemy of routine. This and his thoughts on Bach, Bruckner and Beethoven. – The Independent (UK)
THE LARGEST CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL IN THE WORLD
The Ottawa Chamber Music Festival presents 98 concerts in two weeks with some of the world’s best chamber music groups and attracts 45,000 people. What’s the secret? – The Globe and Mail (Canada)
THE SINGERS OF SUMMER
“Only if you’ve ignored the growth of opera over the past 15 years would you be so foolish to think that opera isn’t as popular, American and indissolubly linked to summer as baseball. In fact, opera is booming, in no small part because of the experience offered by adventurous summer companies like Glimmerglass.” – Washington Post
ODE TO MALE
Iran holds it first big music festival, but a proposed performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is scrubbed. “We will not perform the Ninth, because it calls for women’s voices and that is banned under Islamic law.” – BBC Music Magazine
DANCE SOLIDARITY
Dancers of the now-disbanded Martha Graham Company will release a letter today asking that “any dance company currently licensed to perform the choreographer’s work refrain from doing so until the Graham dancers themselves have come to a workable agreement with the Martha Graham Trust and director Ron Protas and are able to resume their own performance of Graham’s pieces.” – Chicago Sun-Times