A “successful” violinist in a small town in the western US decides to give up music. “There are too many music schools and departments, and too many string players being trained as it is. Could I live with myself by pandering to the dreams of young and blissfully unaware musicians? Even if I were to be offered a tenure-track position at a music department, I would face some moral dilemmas about doing the job. I know that I would be under pressure to recruit string students to fill my studio and the school symphony, thus ensuring my own position. But how could I do that knowing the abysmal state of the job market?”
Tag: 05.20.05
A Challenge For Black British Theatre
Two pieces of black British theatre are playing in London’s West End. “There are now three generations of Afro-Caribbeans in Britain, a cultural shift that the establishment can no longer afford not to invest in. These new audiences and theatre practitioners have experiences that are meaningful to everyone, not just to specific cultural groups.”
The More You Know, The Less You Remember?
Certain kinds of memory decrease the more knowledge you accumulate, reports a new study. “Verbatim memory is often a property of being a novice. As people become smarter, they start to put things into categories, and one of the costs they pay is lower memory accuracy for individual differences. The ability to categorize is often very helpful, but this study shows how it can lead people to ignore individual details.”
Will Corcoran Cancel Gehry Expansion?
“The Corcoran Gallery of Art’s chairman said Thursday that the 136-year-old institution is in such serious financial straits that it should suspend efforts to build its much-heralded new wing, for which architect Frank Gehry has already completed a design, and replace its longtime director.”
The Soldier-Writer
Under an NEA program, US soldiers are learnign to write. “Is there any evidence that seeing a war first-hand will forge a better writer? Is there a correlation between what a marine experiences and what he or she writes, between seeing and doing, M-16 and pencil? Most of the writers I spoke to admitted that war had provided them with swathes of material, since, to paraphrase Polish writer Ryszard Kapuscinski, it is life lived at maximum tension. But this reality doesn’t necessarily translate into literature.”
Holmes – The Case Of The Enduring Detective
Sherlock Holmes has had one of the most enduring afterlifes in all of literature. “Holmes has become a one-man entertainment complex. He has been the subject of at least 100 movies and nearly as many plays and radio dramas, and he has inspired an entire library’s worth of books. There have been countless sequels and knockoffs…” So why does Holmes continue to fascinate us?
Washington State Collectors Skate On Taxes
Wealthy art collectors in Washington state weren’t paying taxes on the art they bought out of state. But when an enterprising revenue agent began going after them to collect the taxes, her investigations were shut down. Why? Seems a little pressure applied in the right places can buy a little special treatment…
Getty Curator Indicted In Italy
A Getty curator has been indicted in Italy on charges of plundering antiquities. “Marion True, 56, curator for antiquities at the museum and director of the Getty Villa, is accused of criminal conspiracy to receive stolen goods and illicit receipt of archeological items. It is also alleged that True in effect laundered goods that were purchased by a private collection and then sold to the Getty in paper transactions that created phony documentation.”
MoMA Buys Land For Expansion
Barley into its big new home, the Museum of Modern Art has bought the land immediately west of its location for future expansion. “The museum is thinking of constructing a project on the new land, but notes that the air rights over the space far exceed the gallery needs of the museum. Therefore, he says the likely outcome will be additional galleries with space above for commercial use.”
Fischer-Dieskau At 80
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau was the greatest lieder singer of he 20th Century. “It is more than 12 years since the most influential singer of the 20th century stepped quietly out of the limelight and brought the curtain down on his 50-year career. Now, to mark his 80th birthday on May 28, there will be ceremonies and awards; a new pictorial biography by Hans Neunzig; large selections from his enormous recorded legacy are poised for reissue by DG; and the singer himself is giving a steady stream of interviews in the Berlin house where he has lived for more than half a century.”