Category: people

Kevin Spacey had a rough reception in his first year running London’s Old Vic Theatre. “Spacey, 46, is committed to a plan to re-establish the Old Vic as the leading popular theatre in London. ‘My commitment here is for 10 years. It will take five to establish myself and build up the audience who come and see the work. I will have been on stage here this year for 36 weeks in three plays. I took six weeks out to shoot the new Superman movie. That to me is the right balance. The movies are not my first priority – the theatre is’.”

Police in Independence, Missouri, have picked up a Kansas City teenager for questioning in the murder of Kansas City Symphony bassist Steven Peters, who was killed in his home on Tuesday. Police are not saying whether the 17-year-old is a suspect in the case.

51-year-old bass player Steven Peters, a 21-year veteran of the Kansas City Symphony, was found murdered in his home on Tuesday. Police are releasing little information about the crime, but Mr. Peters’ brother-in-law has been quoted by the Associated Press as saying that the house had been burgled four times in the last six months. Members of the orchestra were notified by phone Tuesday night.

Minister of Canadian Heritage might not sound like the most high-pressure government job, but don’t tell that to the woman currently holding that title. The CBC lockout falls under her purview, for one thing, and she is openly disdainful of the bickering that led to the work stoppage, insisting that the CBC’s problems are “not a question of money… [but of] governance.” Then there’s the dustup over satellite radio, which Canadians broadcasters desperately want to launch, but which some worry will spell the end of Canada’s historic controls on commercial broadcasting which have allowed the country’s own artists to thrive without being swamped by the American media machine. On that issue, Heritage Minister Liza Frulla admits she still isn’t sure which way she’ll turn.

In the awful days following the levee breaks in New Orleans, the Baton Rouge Advocate captured a moving photo of a lone violinist, seen from above, playing Bach for a roomful of his fellow hurricane survivors. The photo was reproduced around the world, and this week, AJ Blogger Jan Herman caught up with the subject. Samuel Thompson is “a professional musician, born 34 years ago in Charleston, S.C., who took up the violin at age 9, and has studied at the University of South Carolina, Oklahoma State University and Rice University.” Like so many others displaced by the storm, he is hoping to rebuild his life on the back of his talent, and the works he was performing to soothe the refugees of New Orleans are the same ones he has been using in orchestral auditions over the last several months.

“Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director Daniel Barenboim has defended his decision to deny an interview to an Israel Army Radio reporter, saying she was insensitive to have worn a military uniform at a literary function attended by Palestinians. The incident took place Thursday at the Jerusalem launch of a book on music Barenboim wrote with the late Edward Said.” Barenboim, an Israeli citizen, has regularly raised the hackles of some of his countrymen with his statements of support for Palestinian causes.

Singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright has become a darling of the indie-rock scene over the past few years, renowned for his poetic lyrics and the “plaintive vibrato” of his voice. But Wainwright’s musical tastes might surprise most of his fans: he’s a major opera buff, a serious fanatic “who can trace the seamless structure of the banquet scene from Verdi’s Macbeth and discuss the subtleties of Gluck’s lesser-known Armide.” And don’t think Rufus’s obsession with the music of Europe’s cultural elite sat well with his ’60s-era folksinger parents, either…

Fats Domino had been reported missing in New Orleans earlier this week, but was rescued and spent the last part of the week sleeping on a couch in an apartment in Baton Rouge. “We’ve lost everything,” said Domino, 77. “I don’t know what we’re going to do. I never wanted to leave.”

Israel’s education minister called Daniel Barenboim anti-Semitic after the conductor refused to be interviewed by a radio reporter wearing a military uniform. Barenboim: “Anti-Semitic? What is anti-Semitic about it? When I say that a uniform should be worn to the right places and not to the wrong ones, there is nothing anti-Semitic about it, there is no logic to this claim. I just thought that in this place, discussing a book written together with a Palestinian, it shows lack of sensitivity.”

Conductor Seiji Ozawa is throwing himself a star-studded gala concert 70th birthday party in Japan. “Top musicians will perform while US Senator Ted Kennedy and composer John Williams have sent video messages. The charity concert is being held at the Saito Kinen Festival, which Ozawa set up in 1992. Guests will include Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and American jazz pianist Marcus Roberts.”