Category: issues

For the first time, America’s major arts service organizations will gather together. The American Symphony Orchestra League, Opera America, Dance USA, Theatre Communications Group, Chamber Music America, Chorus America, Association of Performing Arts Presenters, Meet the Composer, American Music Center, American Composers Forum and Music Critics Association of North America will hold conferences in June 2004 in Pittsburgh.

Just who is running Australian arts organizations? Not artists. “Just under 12 per cent of the directors on the 40 boards are practising artists, former artists, or teachers in the arts. The 40 boards comprised 356 directors, of whom 42 are artists, artistic directors or teachers of an art form. The nation’s arts boards are dominated by marketing executives, investment bankers, professional company directors, media personalities and accountants.”

The US Copyright Office asks for public comment on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. And gets it. “Respondents, including several well-known digital rights activists, overwhelmingly favored carving out exceptions to the DMCA for certain uses of music files, text and video technologies. Many argued that buyers of copyrighted works should have the right to make content accessible on more than one device.”

“In an era when the Prime Minister asks to be called Tony, haven’t we in the arts been left behind by the audience?” Artforms that stick to tired old ways of doing things are at risk of becoming irrelevant. “Let’s take the arts right into the heart of contemporary life and aspiration in any way possible.”

Students at America’s top universities have little time for fun. They’ve had to work too hard to get in. “They’ve usually started a few companies, cured at least three formerly fatal diseases, mastered a half dozen or so languages, and marched for breast cancer awareness through Tibet while tutoring the locals on conflict resolution skills and environmental awareness. Their main lack is time. Students boast to each other about how little sleep they’ve gotten, and how long it’s been since they had a chance to get back to their dorm room…”

Pasadena California School Superintendent came up with the idea to create an arts high school as a way to lure back families who had abandoned the public schools for private schools. About 850 students signed up and the school became “one of the most closely watched new school projects in Southern California.” So how’s the first year going? Not good. “Since opening in September, McKinley – which uses the site and the name of a long-shuttered campus near the Pasadena Playhouse – has been dogged by poor planning and a variety of start-up problems, according to parents, teachers and students.”

“Critics of a controversial U.S. copyright law applauded a jury’s decision Tuesday to acquit a Russian software firm charged with creating an illegal encryption-disabling program… The acquittal, announced in federal district court in San Jose, California, brought to a close the first federal criminal trial of a company accused of violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act… DMCA critics say the jury showed an unwillingness to convict a company merely for creating a program that others might use to commit acts of copyright infringement.”

So the Blair government threw a bunch of money at arts programs for children because it was proven that arts education cut crime. “At the bottom of the press release was a note saying that in areas where the scheme had been successful, burglary rates had fallen by up to 23 per cent.” Great. But why have to justify supporting arts education on social grounds? “Is it too far fetched to believe in a future where artists and performers of all sorts are a familiar and essential part of the school community?”

Ruth Lilly has given $120 million to arts advocacy group Americans for the Arts. “Over the years, Ruth Lilly has been a generous supporter of the arts and education. At her death, according to the Indianapolis Star, half of her estimated $1 billion estate will go to the arts and various charities.”

In Scotland, the National Lottery has, for the last eight years injected millions of pounds into sport, heritage, health, education and the arts. The massive infusions of cash have been used to “improve buildings, facilities and the well being of communities. It’s been very successful: the Scottish Arts Council alone has invested £170 million in arts facilities and activities up and down the country, not just for flagship buildings, but for dozens of musical instruments, children’s workshops and skills training.” Now Scots are being asked if the money’s going to the right places…