“Ray Bradbury still has a lot to say, especially about how people do not understand his most literary work, Fahrenheit 451, published in 1953. It is widely taught in junior high and high schools and is for many students the first time they learn the names Aristotle, Dickens and Tolstoy. Now, Bradbury has decided to make news about the writing of his iconographic work and what he really meant. Fahrenheit 451 is not, he says firmly, a story about government censorship.”
Tag: 05.30.07
The 12-Year-Old Prodigy
“Alex Prior is what used be to be called a child prodigy and is now regarded as a freak of nature. Were his gift of the sporting kind, he would be playing in gold studs at Wembley or Wimbledon and grinning from roadside hoardings from here to Calcutta. But modern times are suspicious of precocity and feel threatened by junior genius.”
Wanted – Diversity In UK Theatre Critics
“I still remember a row with a colleague – one of those booze-fuelled arguments that consist of hollering pointlessly at the other person until 2am. What triggered it was my suggestion that theatre critics are still not as diverse a crowd as they should be. I do find it disturbing that while black playwrights and actors are making inroads, there isn’t a single black critic writing for a national or Sunday newspaper in this country.”
On The Whole, She’d Rather Be In Philadelphia
After a highly unusual year spent shuttling between principal horn gigs in St. Louis and Philadelphia, Jennifer Montone has informed the St. Louis Symphony that she will be officially departing the orchestra in order to spend full time in her now tenured chair in the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Pittsburgh To Drop Unusual ‘Arts Tax’
The mayor of Pittsburgh has pledged to eliminate an unusual “amusement tax” on area arts groups next year. Many cities levy a tax on tickets to for-profit entertainments like sports and pop concerts, but extending such a tax to non-profit cultural groups is highly unusual. The elimination of the tax will save the city’s performing arts groups nearly half a million dollars per year.
Järvi Scores Paris Directorship
Paavo Järvi has been named music director of the Orchestre de Paris, succeeding Christoph Eschenbach, who steps aside in 2010. Järvi’s star has been rising considerably in recent years as music director of the Cincinnati Symphony, and he will begin work in Paris two years before the orchestra moves into its new 2,400-seat home.
Museum Of Modern Art Elects New Chairman
Jerry Speyer, President & CEO of Tishman Speyer Properties, has been as a member of the MoMA Board of Trustees since 1982. He becomes Chairman after serving as Vice Chairman since 1996. He was integral to the new building project and instrumental in the Museum’s sale of the West End properties.
A London Concert Hall Made Grand Again
Next week London’s Royal Festival Hall reopens after a £111 million overhaul. “Don’t come here expecting the RFH to have been transformed into some whizzy, hippity-hoppity “iconic” architectural experience for the readily bored. No. The building has been brought back to life in a way wholly recognisable to those who first came to listen to concerts here when Clement Attlee was prime minister and ration books were still in belt-tightening force. Equally, the RFH looks wonderfully fresh and new.”
Art Basel Eve – Too Many Art Fairs?
“The pressure of the growing number of art fairs is tough on primary-market dealers. Normally, a dealer will ask an artist to produce a particularly special work to take to a fair. ‘But it’s hard to say that five or six times a year’.”
Why Not Give Away Classical Music?
A star plays a free concert. And people come. “You know that classical-music concerts never cover their costs. Why not raise more money and give it away? Could it be any simpler? Perhaps – if our civilization didn’t complicate it so much.”