“The word circulating throughout much of publishing in recent weeks was that March was one of the worst sales months in a very long time.” Preliminary figures suggest sales were down 11 percent in bookstores.
Tag: 05.14.03
Bashing French Dance
There are many reasons to dislike what the French have contributed to dance, writes Robert Gottlieb. There’s Sylvie Guillem, of course, “a dancer with the fatal combination of tremendous ability, a ruthless determination to do it her way and a total lack of sensibility. I hate to think of the number of ballerinas whose classicism has been corrupted by her extravagant ways.” And then there’s Maurice Bejart…
Cannes – Yeah, There Are Movies, But First…
“Just getting here at all proved problematic for the estimated 150,000 attendees, including some 4,000 journalists from 75 countries: a massive nationwide public workers strike eliminated 80% of airline flights and two-thirds of all trains on the very day most people traveled. Once the weary cinematic pilgrims arrived, they were handed a stern warning about SARS from France’s Ministry of Health. Even though most Asian visitors had volunteered for medical checkups before they’d left, they were directed to report any suspicious symptoms, and all festival-goers were told to leave a forwarding address in case of unknown exposure. Terrorism was another threat no one was exactly ignoring.”
Media Deregulation – A Matter of Survival Or A Threat To Diversity?
Local television station autonomy is at the heart of one of the media ownership rules set to be changed soon by the Federal Communications Commission. Media companies say that: ‘costs are going up, audience is going down, competition is increasing. The only way to help is to relax the ownership rules, allowing networks to buy more stations and increase revenue.” Critics say too much media ownership concentrated in too few hands will destroy media diversity, particularly at the local level.
Munich’s Big-Bucks Play For Culture Capital
Munich is spending big to sign up stars to direct its music institutions. The city is vying to be a cultural capital. “But music is not one of those spectator sports whose results can be rigged by wealth. It is a mind-game, often a minefield, in which sprightly left-wingers run rings around the sorry hulks of expensive defensive walls, and dinky British orchestras have a gratifying habit of outmanoeuvring the mighty spenders. Munich’s mistake was to play by a set of rules that has been rendered obsolescent by the collapse of classical recording. Today, when hardly any maestros get past studio security, orchestras are trapped between picking a fossilised relic of distant recorded memory or risking an unknown prospect.”
The FBI’s Extraordinary Harassment Of Aaron Copland
The FBI investigated composer Aaron Copland for 20 years. Yes he was political, but he has also, for decades, been considered one of America’s most recognizeable musical voices. “The extent of Copland’s political engagement is neither a secret nor a surprise. Copland never hid his essential political sympathies. But what these documents tell about the US treatment of Copland is as much the story of the harassment of 20th-century composers as anything that happened to Dmitri Shostakovich in the Soviet Union or to Kurt Weill or Ernst Krenek in Nazi Germany. “
Russian MPs Protest McCartney Concert
Members of the Russian parliament are protesting a planned concert by Paul McCartney in Red Square next week. “More than 100 have signed a petition protesting at the place where the Soviet leaders Lenin, Stalin, and Brezhnev, and the pioneer cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, lie buried in Moscow being used for a rock concert which carries, they say, ‘a covert political meaning’.”
The Future of Arab Fiction
The Arab world is changing fast, and Arab writers are following suit, writing more freely about subjects once considered the worst kind of taboo, and producing work which eschews the defeatist, underdog tone which has for so long been the hallmark of the region. “Despite a wave of religious conservatism in the Arab world, the young generation of Egyptian poets and novelists is seeking ways to circumvent censorship, using the Internet and satellite television to disseminate their works.” The young writers leading the charge are controversial, outspoken, and – surprise! – popular.
Labor Troubles In Pittsburgh
“Dancers with Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre handed out leaflets before performances of ‘Cleopatra’ last week because they wanted ballet patrons to know about PBT’s proposals to reduce rehearsal time and increase the number of student performers, a union representative for the dancers said yesterday.” PBT dancers have been at an impasse with management over the details of a new contract. The issue of student performers seems to be the biggest sticking point, with dancers fearing that they could be gradually pushed out of PBT productions in favor of cheaper student performers eager for professional experience.
Not Quite Dead Yet?
Musicians and management at the near-defunct Florida Philharmonic are reportedly still talking, in an effort to find some way of preserving or reinventing the ensemble. There isn’t a great deal of optimism at the moment, but orchestras in other communities have risen from the ashes, and some at the Florida Phil appear to think it can do the same. But any new orchestra would likely face the same problems – funding, haphazard management, and audience apathy – as the current group.