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CLASSICAL REBIRTH

Classical music has “entered the third Christian millennium more bewildered than most art forms, having long since lost its bearings. Yet the very anarchy of millennial mayhem may subtly assist its arrival at an epochal self-recognition. For the more diffuse society becomes, the more it reflects the eclectic state of musical creation.” – London Telegraph

SOMBER AND MOROSE

Is that any way to party for the new millennium? As international TV coverage of New Year’s parties from world capitals rolled on, Canada’s capital was absent. Now complaints about the New Year’s Eve show on Parliament Hill have been pouring in from people who found the spectacle “pathetic” and an “embarrassment.” “Accustomed to the usual $2-million Canada Day spectacular, they got a half-price special.” – Ottawa Citizen

  • Eyewitness account. – Ottawa Citizen

  • You got what you wanted (or what the polls said you wanted). – CBC

ARTISTIC DICTATES

Siberia’s Krasnoyarsk Lenin Museum wasn’t exactly a cutting-edge institution under the previous regime. But its reincarnation into a modern art museum has been full of imagination. In 1998, the Council of Europe even designated it the best museum in all of Europe.  – New York Times

URBAN RENEWAL

Think drug cartel and you probably think Colombia. Probably think Medellin, Colombia. Now Fernando Botero, Latin America’s most celebrated living artist, is putting the full force of his renown behind a wide-ranging effort to overhaul the city’s reputation and skyline, installing 79 of his paintings, drawings and sculptures he just donated to the Museo de Antioquia. – New York Times