Zinman, Davis, Conlon Reportedly Top PSO’s Wish List

As the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra moves closer to hiring a new executive director, its list of candidates to replace Mariss Jansons as music director is slowly narrowing. No one expects a decision before next spring, but some intriguing names have emerged as serious candidates, while others have fallen by the wayside. Reported to be at the top of the PSO’s list of potential MDs are David Zinman (formerly of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra,) Sir Andrew Davis (who led Toronto in the 1990s,) and James Conlon, whose reputation is firmly established in Europe, but has yet to take on the top job at a North American orchestra.

Minnesota Fringe On The Edge

The Minnesota Fringe Festival is the biggest in the country. But its future is in dancer. “The festival is confronting a triple whammy of a continued slumping economy, uncertainty from corporate sponsors and the loss of $20,000 in funding from the Minnesota State Arts Board. ‘The problem is not that people are saying no to us, it’s that they’re not saying either yes or no. We’re literally going to print with the program tomorrow night and we still don’t have the final word from some of our sponsors. As you can imagine, that makes forecasting difficult’.”

Art Of The Pooch

“With pets holding court as favored members of the family, pup art has become big business. Dozens of artists advertise their talents on the Internet. Pet parodies in the style of famous artists depict everything from a cut-up geometric Picasso beagle to a tabby frozen in Edvard Munch’s “Scream”. Getting your pooch’s picture with Santa has been popular for years at vets’ offices and animal shelters, and photography studios report a brisk business in non-human shoots. Given this flurry of furry activity, museum-quality custom paintings were inevitable…”

Shakespeare In Translation: Harder Than It Sounds

Translating plays from one language to another is always a difficult task. Translating Shakespeare, whose constant use of puns and linguistic tricks was uniquely English, is nigh onto impossible, particularly when the language needed is as far afield from the original as Japanese. There have been many Japanese translations of the Bard’s works, of course, but many have made the mistake of trying too hard to stick faithfully to the original dialogue. The resulting mish-mash of words and sounds can be grating on a Japanese audience’s ears, says Miki Takashima, but a new Tokyo production of Hamlet seems to have risen above the usual awkwardness.

The Evolution of a Festival

Ontario’s Shaw Theatre Festival has a new artistic director, and Jackie Maxwell is wasting no time in putting her mark on the organization made famous by her predecessor, Christopher Newton. That type of situation is bound to make fans and critics (not to mention actors) a bit nervous, but Christopher Rawson says that the Shaw appears to be as artistically vibrant as its ever been. “Of the three shows I saw, two are well worth traveling to see and the third is worth seeing once you’ve made the trip.”

Zeroing Out The Arts In California

The budget crisis in California is dire, so dire that the Democrats in control of the State Senate are seriously considering a proposal to completely eliminate the State Arts Board, which issues $18 million in grant money to California artists each year. The wholesale destruction of the board, which draws $20 million from the public coffers annually, wouldn’t go far towards eliminating the Golden State’s eye-popping $38 billion deficit, but Senate leaders say there may be no way around it.

The Film World Loses One Of Its Finest

The actress Katherine Hepburn has died. Her career spanned more than half a century, and encompassed a breathtaking diversity of work. She won her first Oscar in 1933 for Morning Glory, and her last, for On Golden Pond, 48 years later. Her work with Spencer Tracy is the stuff of cinema legend, and she was completely at home in roles from Cleopatra to Violet Vennable. Hepburn was 96.

Baghdad Symphony Rises From The Ashes Of A City

The Baghdad Symphony Orchestra has played a concert. Consider the gravity of such a statement. In a city where many residents are without electricity, or water, or basic medical care, and where American and British troops continue to conduct daily raids searching for supporters of deposed dictator Saddam Hussein, 50 musicians sat on a stage in formal attire, and brought music back to the Iraqi capital for the first time since the invasion began. The first work on the program was the patriotic song, “My Nation,” virtually banned under Hussein’s rule.

Impressionism You Can Really Get Into

J. Seward Johnson Jr. can make a bronze sculpture so lifelike and convincing that you’ll want to talk to it. But his latest assignment is far more daunting than any park-bench mannequin. Johnson is recreating the works of the great Impressionist painters, in bronze, in real-life scale, and in three dimensions. “Visitors [to Johnson’s exhibit in Washington] will be able to walk into Vincent van Gogh’s ‘The Bedroom’ in Arles, France. They will be invited to touch the objects, to the expected horror of conservative museum folks. They will even be able to lie down on the bed, though they won’t be able to get under the covers.”

Forget the Museum! How About That Storage Shed?

This week, Atlanta’s High Museum of Art will close for two months of extensive renovation and expansion, the latest in a string of American museums to break ground on expensive new wings. But even more impressive than the renovation plans is the $5 million facility where the museum will house its 11,000-piece collection during construction. “Even with its artwork under one roof, the High will have enough room left over to accelerate a pack rat’s heart: 21,472 square feet of amply lit, high-ceilinged, generously shelved capacity… The storage facility is equipped with high-tech fixtures, too, such as the shiny white vapor-tight cabinets ($4,000 apiece) that currently house the ceramics collection.”