Category: today’s top story

“The Woodruff Arts Center, which has increased its role in education in recent years, received a major boost in that effort Tuesday with the announcement of a $12 million grant from the Goizueta Foundation.”

“The creators of ‘The Laramie Project,’ the acclaimed play about the 1998 murder of a 21-year-old gay man, Matthew Shepard, are finishing work on an 80-minute epilogue to the original work that will be given its debut simultaneously at dozens of theaters across the United States on Oct. 12, the 11th anniversary of Mr. Shepard’s death. … Tectonic’s goal is to recruit 100 regional theaters, universities and other arts organizations to hold staged readings of the work….”

Classically trained pianist and composer Arthur Bloom isn’t engaging in “standard music therapy” in his project with injured veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Determined to provide them with “serious, one-on-one, customized training, ongoing collaboration, [and] professional mentors, … he persuaded donors to give him instruments, got Steve Jobs to donate computers, and set up what looks like a small recording studio in one of the residential houses at Walter Reed.”

“Jurors ordered Tenenbaum to pay $22,500 for each incident of copyright infringement, effectively finding that his actions were willful. Under federal law, the recording companies were entitled to $750 to $30,000 per infringement. But the law allows as much as $150,000 per track if the jury finds the infringements were willful. The maximum jurors could have awarded in Tenenbaum’s case was $4.5 million.”

“Fringe Sunday has been cancelled, as have the opening and closing parties for performers; the Cavalcade has been greatly cut back; there is a dearth of sponsors; and, heaven forfend, Soho House will no longer be providing free champagne for its members staying north of the border during festival time. The recession is certainly having an effect on what is being called the credit-crunch Fringe, which gets under way in Edinburgh next weekend.”

“The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra announced today that the contract for Mario Venzago, its music director since 2002, will not be renewed.” Says the orchestra’s CEO, “His contract is decided on an annual basis, and we were unable to come to a new agreement. We’ve been discussing this for some time.” Venzago’s assistant says that only one “totally unacceptable” offer was made.

“Defenders of the status quo will tell you two things about African Americans and the American symphony orchestra: The reason there are so few blacks in orchestras is that the talent just isn’t out there, and racism can’t be the issue because auditions are played behind screens.” What’s really missing may be the relationships that help musicians get hired.

“The more than £100 million of extra public cash that has been invested by the government in English theatre since 2002 has resulted in a ‘confident and energised’ sector, creating ‘innovative’ and ‘risk-taking’ work with higher production values, while employing more staff and paying better wages, but has failed to increase audience numbers across the country.”

“The Los Angeles City Council is weighing a plan to issue a $30-million loan that would allow the owner of the Hollywood & Highland shopping mall to retrofit a theater so it can house a decade of performances by Cirque du Soleil. CIM Group … hopes to bring the acrobatic performances to the venue starting in 2011. In exchange for the loan, CIM and its partners would pledge to create at least 858 jobs, according to the proposal.”

“Literary heavyweights AS Byatt and JM Coetzee were today named on this year’s longlist for the Booker prize – which also features a first-time writer purporting to be Tarzan’s chimpanzee.” Other candidates include “Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel’s gripping account of Henry VIII’s Tudor court told through his chief minister, Thomas Cromwell”; “Adam Foulds’ The Quickening Maze, set in a private asylum used by the Victorian poet John Clare”; and Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn.