Category: people

Cameron Mackintosh’s name may not generate the immediate reverence of a Stephen Sondheim or a Neil Simon, but over the course of a long career, Mackintosh has generated hit after hit, whether on Broadway, in London’s West End, or anywhere else around the world. “Mackintosh remade the modern theatrical spectacle and transformed Broadway and the American road (not to mention old cinemas from Vienna to Tokyo) with his big four: Cats, Les Misérables, Miss Saigon and The Phantom of the Opera… But the high points came 15 years ago.” Does Mackintosh have any magic left?

Most classical musicians have lives and interests that range far beyond the concert hall, but pianist Helene Grimaud has managed to become almost as well known for her hobby – a passionate interest in wolves – as she is for her playing. “Her advocacy work has aroused a certain skepticism in the classical music world. Some have suggested that she’s in it as much for her own image as for the wolves’. But surely there are easier — and safer — ways to gain publicity… On a broader, impersonal level, Ms. Grimaud said that at a time when classical music and wolves are devalued if not endangered, with both ‘there’s no long-term hope for conservation without education.'”

“Richard Gilman, an eloquent and exacting theater critic who helped sharpen America’s definition of modern drama, died at his home in Kusatsu, Japan, Oct. 28.”

Cariaga was a longtime classical music critic for the Los Angeles Times. “Danny Cariaga was the quiet, careful and profoundly knowledgeable chronicler of Los Angeles’ musical life for more than 40 years. He was a critic’s critic. His prose was concise, graceful, understated. And his instinct in finding — and his love of sharing — pleasure in all that he heard and witnessed was unique.”

“Although Mr. Styron’s ouevre seems somewhat slender in retrospect, each of his major novels built upon its predecessor’s achievements, working variations on earlier ideas, while amplifying them through the echo chamber of history.”

“William Styron, the novelist from the American South whose explorations of difficult historical and moral questions earned him a place among the leading literary figures of the post-World War II generation, died yesterday on Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., where he had a home. He was 81… Critics and readers alike ranked him among the best of the generation that succeeded Hemingway and Faulkner.”

David Mamet has written a scathing “rant against assimilation.” It may “shock those devotees who have either discounted or ignored the political implications of Mamet’s Jewish turn. As in his recent mocking response to Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic ravings, Mamet has of late become a self-styled defender of the faith, accusing all defamers of Israel of being racists in their flagrant anti-Semitism.”

The self-taught artist known internationally as Mose T helped the world discover what was then called “folk art” in the 1982 show “Black Folk Art in America: 1930-1980” at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington. The Montgomery artist was the last living artist from the exhibition.

“Pontus Hulten, a visionary art impresario who embraced artists of many persuasions, conceived of museums as public forums for mind-bending experiences and infused his ideas into the foundations of several major institutions, including the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, died Wednesday at his home in Stockholm.”

“Richard Gilman, the drama and literary critic whose elegant, contentious voice resonated through four decades in American letters, earning him both admirers and enemies of partisan fierceness, died Saturday at his home in Kusatsu, Japan.”