A major donor to the Fort Wayne (Indiana) Philharmonic wanted to join the board. The orchestra is having attendance and money problems. But the orchestra’s board refused to have him join them. Why? “I’m very controversial to some people, because I want to make things better. Board members think it’s their orchestra.”
Tag: 06.25.06
Is TV The Road To Talent In The Theatre?
A British TV show is a search for theatrical talent. “Is it possible, the series asks, not only to select a credible winner from a pool of inchoate works in progress, but also to muscle it into shape — rewrite it, cast it, design it, stage it — in the space of a few months, so that it can open in the West End? And perhaps even more to the point, can it ever make money?”
Video, Video, Everywhere…
“Concurrent with the migration to the Web of professional video – ‘Desperate Housewives’ on iTunes and the like – there has been a nuclear explosion in the field of amateur video. The gatekeeper used to be “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” and it tended to let in mostly footage of people doubled over in sudden comic pain, but now the gates are wide open. YouTube, the leader in an increasingly crowded genre, claims 50,000 videos are uploaded to its site daily, a number that seems awesome until you think about some other numbers.”
The New Politics – A Flood Of Books
Bookstores are filling up with new books on political themes. “Ten years ago, political books didn’t sell very well. Now, in the last three or four years, the sales are off the charts. Look at the last election with the Al Frankens, Michael Moores, Bill O’Reillys. The publishers know this and they’re responding.”
A Kansas City Museum’s New Display Idea
Kansas City’s Nelson-Atkins Museum is rearranging its collection. “Typically, there are rooms for paintings, for sculpture, for silverwork, for ceramics, for furniture, etc., and never do the various media meet. That, however, has changed in Kansas City. ‘It is a new museum concept. It grows out of this idea that I had that people weren’t getting enough out of it’.”
Summertime… And The (Orchestra) Concerts Mean Something
It’s easy to pooh-pooh conservative summer orchestra concerts. But “what is it about these neighborhood concerts that makes them work so well? They come at a time when even the orchestra management is saying that supply outstrips demand for subscription concerts – you know, the ones whose ticket prices have escalated at three times the rate of inflation. Maybe the fact that the neighborhood concerts are free has something to do with it. But for these audiences, the act of the orchestra coming to them gratis eases more than just logistical and financial hurdles. The trek becomes a social gesture in which an important civic institution takes a little of its glamour and prestige to declare that a section of the city or suburbs matters.”
Everything You Ever Needed To Know About The Florida Orchestra
It was a good season – some concert highlights, some new players, some changes in management…