Tour-only CDs are catching on with indie-label musicians and their fans. They’re ‘low-concept, short-production-run discs typically sold only at concerts and usually recorded live or in the artist’s home-studio. Tour discs might contain early versions of songs that will make it onto future label releases, unedited recordings of live shows, or a selection of what will ultimately turn out to be rareties. For musicians it’s a “chance to raise a little bit of extra cash while they’re out on the road, the opportunity to experiment musically in the presence of a friendly audience, or simply a way to provide music without worrying about whether it’s the best artistic or career move.”
Tag: 03.02.03
Meet Mr. Post-Brustein
Robert Woodruff has a tough job – succeeding the legendary Robert Brustein as director of American Reportory Theatre in Cambridge. Some thought the director and the new job might not be a good fit. But “offstage, stripped of the spotlight, the outlaw director comes across as surprisingly regular. For all his Johnny Cash cool, he is equal parts Woody Allen: a slightly neurotic New Yorker overworked and unwilling to rest until every detail is in place. Strip away a few sexy hobbies – riding his BMW motorcycle, hiking to 18,000 feet in Tibet – and Robert Woodruff’s life outside the theater begins to sound pretty bland. In fact, there is little in his life that doesn’t involve theater.”
Has Broadway Gone Serious?
Wendall Brock detects a shift in attitude in this year’s Broadway season. “The season’s most thrilling productions are asking serious questions about the troubled soul of our democracy. While the Great White Way has always been a showcase for the easy-to-digest, corn-fed Americana of Rodgers and Hammerstein and others, the current season signals an attitude shift that speaks to the jittery politics of the new century.”
Prokofiev – Great Music, Lousy Timing
Prokofiev’s legacy has been marred by contradictions. “He produced some of the sprightliest, most ingenious and most enduringly popular music of the 20th century. Yet Prokofiev’s career was also, in the brisk summation of music historian Francis Maes, ‘a succession of misjudgments,’ marked by flawed calculations on the artistic, personal and political fronts.”
San Antonio – The Costs Of Losing A Symphony Orchestra
What will it mean if the San Antonio Symphony goes out of business for lack of money? “A symphony orchestra is like the canary in the mine. If the bird stops singing, it’s a good bet the air isn’t safe for anybody to breathe. To be blunt, if the San Antonio Symphony goes silent, you’d be well advised to update your résumé. Appropriately valuing the symphony means rejecting the big lie — that’s what it is — that San Antonio is too poor and lowbrow to afford a luxury like a symphony orchestra. The issue isn’t money. The issue is values.”
Library-Builder Extraordinaire
“From Fiji to Florida to Fresno, Calif., Andrew Carnegie built 2,509 libraries between 1881 and 1917, mostly in America, the British Isles and Canada. To this day, Carnegie’s free-to-the-people libraries remain Pittsburgh’s most significant cultural export, a gift that has shaped the minds and lives of millions.”
Why Is The Philadelphia Orchestra Missing Out On Recording?
There was a time that the Philadelphia Orchestra dominated classical recording. Not anymore. Even projects that seem like naturals for the orchestra are going elsewhere. It’s not that recording companies are going out of their way to exclude the orchestra, writes David Patrick Stearns. But maybe the orchestra hasn’t made a strong enough case for itself as a candidate to record…
Destroying Treasures Of History Is Wrong – No Matter Who’s Doing It
Two years ago the world stood apalled as the Taliban blasted the historic Bamiyan Buddhas into oblivion. Though the regime commited many atrocities, somehow the destruction of the centuries-old statues stirred fresh outrage. Now the US is planning to bomb Iraq, site of many historical/archaeological treasures. Is this not outrageous also?
What Defines A Classic – Penguin Makes A New List
Penguin Classics is “freshening its lineup. That means some authors get new attention while others get dropped. “Just as editors pretend to second-guess the market (whilst in fact trying to repeat their rivals’ success), so Penguin Classics has been led by the nose towards the current milch-cow of Victorian genre fiction. Readers brought up on the pastiche melodramas of Sarah Waters, Peter Ackroyd, Peter Carey, Charles Palliser, et al, are hungry for the real thing. Hence the popularity of Wilkie Collins, whose 1860s sensation novels were massive in their own time, but sank without trace during the 100 years after his death.”