“For a writer to become an icon takes time, and 84 years is more than enough. Memorializers the day after spoke of Vonnegut’s send-up in novel after novel of America’s obsession with technology, materialism and power, his creative mentoring of younger ’60s rebels, his evolution as a genre-busting, original comic voice (though Vonnegut traced his style in that department to Laurel and Hardy and Buster Keaton).”
Tag: 04.15.07
Philadelphia Orchestra’s Diversity Struggles
Sixteen years ago the Philadelphia Orchestra embarked on a diversity campaign. “But in 2007 the orchestra is no closer to representing the city’s diversity. Peer out into Verizon Hall, where the audience is a sea of white faces. (Only 1 percent of subscribers were African American as of the last count, in 2001, the orchestra says.) Look onstage. Three players are African American – the same three whose arrival in the early 1970s elicited headlines that barriers in the orchestra world were crumbling. Go behind the scenes. The orchestra’s board has less African American representation than it did in 1991.”
Jowell: Olympics Will Be Good For UK Arts
UK Culture Minister Tessa Jowell defends her government’s arts funding policy, which has been attacked lately. “The last thing we want to do is set arts and sport at each other’s throats. But for five years, the lottery will be the catalyst for the kind of renewal in east London that culture has brought to Gateshead, Manchester, the South Bank and right across the country.”
Who Will Design Venice’s New Museum?
Venice’s heritage committee last week announced that the bid by the Guggenheim Foundation has been sidelined and Pinault’s £18m plan to restore the 17th-century Customs House at the mouth of Venice’s Grand Canal and hang hundreds of modern masterpieces on its walls is now the only contender. The final terms of the agreement are being negotiated.
Venezuela’s Remarkable Music Education
” ‘El Sistema’ [‘The System’], as we call it, now encompasses 140 youth orchestras and 128 children’s orchestras in our country, as well as the semi-professional Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of which I have been music director since 1999, when I was 18. Some 260,000 children and young people are involved in The System — studying and playing orchestral music all the time. Every day. Absolutely. We are a family. My orchestra, and The System, is my family.”
Why Writing Doesn’t Get Any Easier
Michael Ondaatje is a successful writer, by any measure. But he finds writing more difficult with each book. “It always gets harder. You think if you can make one table you can make a second table, but it’s completely different every time. You really do feel, ‘That’s it’.”
What Makes A Movie Critic
“Unlike other areas of criticism and commentary, movie reviewing is perceived as a layman’s game. As with TV and pop music — similar “people’s mediums” — everyone’s a critic. But are they?”
When A Theatre Superstore Bails (Cities Suffer)
Clear Channel is abandoning the live touring theatre business. That’s not good news for cities such as Minneapolis, which have invested heavily in theatres run by Clear Channel’s theatre dvision. So wo will take on the programming and debt obligations for these important cultural venues?
Protecting Bugs Or Artistic Freedom?
“The curator of the Vancouver Art Gallery said insects and reptiles will be removed from a controversial art exhibit on Sunday rather than comply with continuing demands from the SPCA. A terrarium of insects and reptiles called Theater of the World by renowned Chinese artist Huang Yong Ping drew the attention of animal rights groups over concerns the enclosure was cruel to the creatures.”
Behind Scenes Freakout Video
A video of movie director David O. Russell’s freakout on the set of “I Heart Huckabees” was uploaded to YouTube. “Lily Tomlin, who plays one of the detectives, is seen in the video telling Russell, ‘We’re not all as brilliant as you.’ Russell soon erupts, sweeping papers off Tomlin’s desk, then stomps around, kicks a trash can, tosses a hat stand, storms out screaming, then stomps back in, still yelling. One crew member is seen ducking in the background to avoid flying objects.” Does such a clip damage careers?