The library is a bit jarring in real life. It’s more like the Space Age tower headquarters of the police, only with hundreds of sunkissed students pouring in, out, and around it. – The Daily Beast
Tag: 04.20.10
Hearing A String Quartet In Utter Darkness
“The occasion was the West Coast premiere by the JACK Quartet of Georg Friedrich Haas’ third string quartet, “In iij. Noct. The title is taken from a section of the ‘Tenebrae’ by the mad Italian Renaissance composer Carlo Gesualdo. … Haas calls for his score, which was written 2001, to be played blind. … And it was good. Mind-blowingly good.”
London’s Royal Opera Commissions Oedipus Trilogy
Composer Julian Anderson and playwright Frank McGuiness have been selected to write an opera based on Sophocles’s Theban plays, with one act each devoted to Oedipus Rex, Antigone and Oedipus at Colonus. The premiere is planned for 2013.
Top Flamenco Star Convicted Of Embezzlement
“Joaquín Cortés, one of the biggest names in flamenco dancing, has been given a one-year suspended jail term for using €700,000 (£616,000) to fund a luxury lifestyle. Cortés was found guilty of ‘improperly taking’ the cash from a group of Argentinian investors.”
London’s Menier Chocolate Factory Becomes Hit Factory
The “160-seat theater-cum-restaurant in an unfashionable London district” now regularly exports productions to the West End (eight of them, including revivals of Sunday in the Park With George and Sweet Charity) and Broadway (the current Little Night Music with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Angela Lansbury and La Cage aux Folles starring Kelsey Grammer).
Royal Ballet To Premiere Wheeldon’s ‘Alice In Wonderland’ In 2011
“Former New York City Ballet resident choreographer Christopher Wheeldon is to stage the world premiere of his new work, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, early next year at the Royal Opera House. A co-production with the National Ballet of Canada, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is the first full-length ballet commissioned by the Royal Ballet for 15 years.”
Explaining The Ballet Nacional de España, The Company That Does No Ballet
“First things first. It’s not a ballet company – its name refers to Spanish national dance, not classical ballet. But don’t equate Spanish dance with flamenco (or at least, not only flamenco): the company deploys a range of Spanish styles, and is dedicated to creating a repertory of stage works rather than to recreating traditional scenes.”
Cooper Union President George Campbell Jr. To Retire
“[W]hen Dr. Campbell took over in 2000, the institution’s finances were precarious. The college had been running multimillion dollar deficits for years, and its endowment had sunk to a low of $100 million after Sept. 11. Dr. Campbell took advantage of the college’s real estate holdings, including the Chrysler Building, which it owns, to generate new revenue.”
Apple Okays Pulitzer-Winning Cartoonist’s App After All
Mark Fiore: “Looks like some guy named Steve Jobs was able to nudge my app past the gatekeepers.”
Georgia Senate Panel Restores Arts Funding To Budget
“The Senate Appropriations Committee restored the $890,735 that the governor had recommended for [the Georgia Council for the Arts], but the House had cut out. The Senate version of the budget keeps the agency going, but with about $1.6 million less in state backing than it has in fiscal year 2010.” Even so, the funding isn’t a sure thing.