It’s not often that a critic will mercilessly pan a performance, and then suggest that readers attend anyway. But David Patrick Stearns says that everyone within spitting distance of New York ought to hustle to see a new Metropolitan Opera production that he refers to as “breathtakingly vulgar, amazingly wrongheaded,” and a disaster on the scale of the Exxon Valdez.
Tag: 03.08.06
Denver Museum Gets $30 Million In Art, Plus A Summer House
The Denver Art Museum is preparing to accept one of its largest bequests ever – “more than $30 million in contemporary artworks by such marquee names as Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons and Cindy Sherman; Fifteen million dollars in cash; [and] A house and gallery in Vail.” The gift comes from a Vail couple who “have spent more than 14 years acquiring work from around the world, anticipating collecting trends and tapping new sources, including the booming Chinese market. They are included on ARTnews magazine’s prestigious annual list of the world’s top 200 art collectors.”
Idol Hands Do The Devil’s Work
Fox TV’s runaway hit, American Idol, is apparently making kids more interested in singing, and some school music teachers are even using Idol-style competitions to add some spice to their otherwise dry curriculum. But are the Idol worshippers really interested in music, or just in bandwagon jumping? And more importantly, are they really learning anything about music by prancing around in a classrom mimicking the godawful singing technique of the average Idol contestant?
Grammy-Winning African Guitarist Dies
“Ali Farka Touré, the self-taught Malian guitarist and songwriter who merged West African traditions with the blues and carried his music to a worldwide audience, winning two Grammy Awards, died in his sleep on Monday at his farm in the village of Niafunke in northwestern Mali, the Ministry of Culture of Mali announced.”
Conductors On The Run
The past week saw two major music directors – Boston’s James Levine and the London Phil’s Kurt Masur – fall ill on the eve of a major tour. In both cases, podium replacements were quickly named, and the tours went ahead. But what about those substitute conductors? Were they just sitting around waiting for something to do? Not a chance – Marek Janowski, who stepped in for Levine, was in the middle of a two-week conducting stint in Minneapolis when he was asked to make a one-day, 3000-mile detour to conduct one of the most difficult programs imaginable at Carnegie Hall. Meanwhile, Minnesota’s own hometown conductor, Osmo Vänskä, scrambled to reach Southern California to take over Masur’s duties.
Feds Channel Millions To NYC Cultural Rebuilding
More than $27 million in federal grants intended to revitalize New York’s downtown district were announced yesterday. Among the organizations benefitting from the new influx of cash will be the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the Flea Theater and the National Museum of the American Indian. “Some downtown arts groups have repeatedly expressed frustration over the time it has taken for the development corporation to make good on its 2002 pledge to help cultural institutions downtown. Yesterday, their leaders just sounded grateful.”
Hollywood Hates Your Homebrew PVR
Ever since TiVo took over the American television landscape, there has been an explosion of homemade versions of the personal video recorder that do most of the same things TiVo can do, but cheaper, and without a monthly subscription. However, a new round of “digital rights management” legislation threatens to make all but the “official” recorders obsolete, and Hollywood is pushing hard for passage.
Architecture Isn’t The Kimmel’s Real Problem
Peter Dobrin says that the settlement between the Kimmel Center and architect Rafael Viñoly is filled with elements of “pure fantasy” that don’t begin to hold up under scrutiny. “It is a stunning fantasy to call the Kimmel Center a wonderful civic space. It could be a wonderful civic space. Nothing in the architecture prevents it from becoming one. But in its current state, there’s nothing wonderfully civic about the center’s gorgeous, oft-deserted rooftop garden and ground-level plaza… The Kimmel won’t be done until it has an appropriate amount of money – that is, an endowment – to make it fully come alive.”
Trailblazing Director Dies
Photographer and filmmaker Gordon Parks, who broke down racial barriers throughout his career, has died at 93. “He was the first black person to work at Life magazine and Vogue, and the first to write, direct and score a Hollywood film, The Learning Tree (1969), which was based on a 1963 novel he wrote about his life as a farm boy in Kansas. He also was the director of the 1971 hit movie Shaft, which opened the way for a host of other black-oriented films.”
Louisville Orchestra Exec Director Resigns
Louisville Orchestra executive director Scott Provancher has resigned from the beleaguered organization. He “said that felt really good after the initial sessions but he became disappointed that the players decided to conduct a full vote on one of their initial offers before he felt that the offer was fully vetted.”