“Last year, the music magazine fRoots polled what it considered to be the 200 most influential movers and shakers in the music industry (promoters, record companies and journalists) on the best global and folk records of 2005. Four out of the top five records came from West Africa.” So why does African music still have a tough time getting into the global mainstream?
Tag: 05.25.06
A Shortage Of Organists
“The number of organ students nationwide has fallen sharply since the 1950s, and many churches say they can’t find competent musicians to play the hymns, choral accompaniments and solo works that have been a staple of worship services for centuries.”
The Louvre From On High?
What will Atlanta’s High Museum deal with the Louvre to borrow artwork look like? Lee Rosenbaum asks the question: “How many of those loans will actually come from the Louvre’s A-List? The High is paying top dollar for the cachet of the French museum’s imprimatur.” But the museum could be sending lesser works by well-known names. “The proof will be in the seeing. But the proliferation of high-rent shows, whereby major museums beef up their budgets at the expense of other museums, seems like the wrong kind of fundraising.”
The Power Of Crowds
“Just as distributed computing projects like UC Berkeley’s SETI@home have tapped the unused processing power of millions of individual computers, so distributed labor networks are using the Internet to exploit the spare processing power of millions of human brains. The productive potential of millions of plugged-in enthusiasts is attracting the attention of old-line businesses, too. For the last decade or so, companies have been looking overseas, to India or China, for cheap labor. But now it doesn’t matter where the laborers are – they might be down the block, they might be in Indonesia – as long as they are connected to the network.”
Supersized Costs – Studio Pulls Plug On Expensive Comedy
Fox pulls the plug on filming a comedy that was to have cost $112 to make. “At an over-$100 million budget, the talent is making $60 million before the studio can recoup its costs. The economics on it make no sense.”
Is The Internet Really Remaking Indie Music?
Everyone’s talking about the internet’s impact on helping the careers of indie artists. But “while the notion of unsigned artists circumventing radio and television and “shaking the major record labels to their core” is a romantic one, whether it’s happening to the degree being portrayed in the media is another matter entirely. In fact, could it be the idea of the internet, rather than the internet itself, that is driving exposure of emerging artists?”
Israel Museum To Expand
The Israel Museum is to get a $50 million renovation and expansion. “The museum buildings, which sit on a 20 acre site, have grown from 5,000 to 50,000 sq. m since the museum opened in 1965. Plans are being drawn up to reorganise, expand and update the various museum buildings and create new buildings to improve entry, services and circulation for the visitors, which vary between 500,000 and one million a year.”
Cooper-Hewitt Thinks More Modest
“A year after exploring a $75 million expansion that would create three new floors underground, the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum has decided on a relatively modest $25 million renovation that involves little construction.”