Category: issues

“The Boeing Co. and the Smithsonian Institution announced yesterday that the aviation giant is giving $15 million to the National Air and Space Museum. The gift, the largest corporate gift in Smithsonian history, will go to the planned expansion of the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, the Virginia annex of the main museum on the Mall.”

Kansas City’s long-planned (and long-delayed) $326 million performing arts center faces a major turning point this week, when the center’s board will have to decide whether to break ground this year, despite having less money in the bank than they would like. Kevin Collision says that successful cities are those that recognize and leverage their civic assets, and that the center could be the centerpiece of a rebirth for Kansas City’s urban core.

“As the new artistic director of [London’s massive South Bank Arts Centre], Jude Kelly has become one of the most important figures in Britain’s art scene.” But Kelly faces almost innumerable challenges in her new job, not the least of which is the perennial public confusion over what exactly South Bank is, and why they should care.

“Land that was once home to a murderer whose story inspired the movie Psycho was pulled from an online auction” after eBay officials decided that it violated the site’s policy banning “murder memorabilia.” The land, which was purchased at auction in 1958 after being seized by the state of Wisconsin, remains up for sale.

California’s Orange County Performing Arts Center is $70 million short of its expansion costs. “Borrowing $180 million through a bond issue has ensured completion of the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, which backers predict will carry the Costa Mesa center toward its goal of being recognized nationally as a peer of such cultural fulcrums as New York’s Lincoln Center and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. But unless fresh donations pile up in time, leaders of the Orange County center face having to explain why the new jewel comes with a big mortgage attached — and why an organization proud of never having run a deficit in its 20-year history could have to confront unprecedented financial challenges.”

Indianapolis’ music and dance groups are trying to avoid the fate of the Ballet Internationale, which closed last year due to financial problems. So they’ve started programs to try to make themselves more relevant with audiences…

The big San Francisco earthquake of 1906 devastated the city. “But within a few weeks, music and other entertainment returned to the pleasure-loving city now in ruins, providing divertissement for shocked and displaced people forced to rebuild their lives from the ground up.”

Contrary to some recent reports that had Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts struggling under a massive debt load with no relief in sight, Pennsylvania Governer Ed Rendell (who helped get the center off the ground when he was mayor of the city) claims that the Kimmel is only $12 million away from hitting a fundraising target that would allow it to retire its debt. Rendell is also suggesting that the center combine some of its operations with those of its principal tenant, the Philadelphia Orchestra, a move both organizations have reportedly been considering.

This year, an unlikely (and tenuous) alliance arose in Minnesota between the state’s large population of hunters and fisherman, and those who value the state’s longstanding commitment to the arts. The reason for the partnership was to promote a sales tax hike at the state legislature, with proceeds dedicated to the arts and the conservation of the great outdoors. But as the vote count tightens (the legislature is not terribly enamored of new taxes at the moment,) many on the conservationist side are suggesting that the presence of the “arts and culture crowd” is hurting the bill’s chance of passage.

“In the wake of stalled plans for a downtown [Richmond, Virginia] arts center and a struggling Virginia Performing Arts Foundation, a group of young supporters has separated from the foundation to carve out its own identity. Opus, an organization of men and women younger than 40 whose mission is to promote performing arts downtown, originated in 2003 as an outgrowth of the foundation. Now it’s working to become a nonprofit corporation with bylaws and a board.”