There was a time when young architects and designers considered it their civic duty to put some time and effort into creating affordable housing and shelter for the dispossessed. But by the late ’90s, “these concerns had given way to a preoccupation with signature design and theory.” Enter Cameron Sinclair, a 29-year-old designer determined to return the notion of large-scale community service to prominence within his profession.
Tag: 08.28.03
Insane, Murderous, and Pregnant! Must Be An Opera.
This September, Jennifer Welch-Babidge will make her New York City Opera debut in a new production of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, playing the title character who goes mad and kills her fiance because she loves his enemy. It’s a heavy role for any young singer, but in Welch-Babidge’s case, there is an added twist – she is very obviously pregnant. Rather than hide her condition, the director is using it to heighten the drama of the opera, with various characters discovering her bulging belly at key moments in the plot.
Michael The One-Gloved Muse
“The history of art holds many examples of performers who have ignited the imagination of artists. Compelled to bask in their often strange and lurid glow, artists draw closer, like moths to the flame… If a group of emerging Toronto artists is to be believed, Michael Jackson serves as just such a lightning rod today.” Yup, it’s that Michael Jackson, and much of the art inspired by His Strangeness is every bit the sarcastic dreck you’d expect. Still, “some of the work is surprisingly sincere.”
Unintended Consequences
Canada’s duMaurier Arts Council doles out $2 million a year in grants to arts groups which otherwise might go unfunded. But the council, which is funded entirely by the Imperial Tobacco company, is about to be shut down, thanks to new restrictions on tobacco advertising by the federal government. “In what is widely being viewed in the arts community as one last, concerted effort by Imperial to shame the federal government into backing down on the advertising ban, the company issued a news release yesterday. It ran more than four pages and detailed, community by community, the $60 million the tobacco company has pumped into the arts through the council since 1971.”
Welcome To The Skypit
In the national touring company of the Broadway smash The Producers, the orchestra is huge, by Broadway standards and that is creating a problem in many theaters outfitted with tiny, ancient orchestra pits. But rather than employ the controversial ‘virtual orchestra’ concept, The Producers hires a full 23-piece orchestra, and the players who don’t fit in the pit are placed in dressing rooms, backstage nooks, and wherever else they, their instruments, and a microphone can fit. In Boston, the harp, percussion, and cello sections are all located remotely, connected to the conductor only by a video screen and an audio monitor. It’s not ideal, but the musicians, knowing that the alternative would likely be their replacement by synthesizer, aren’t complaining.
The Orchestra As Business Model
Orchestral musicians are not known for their love of corporate types, and the orchestra business itself has been in somewhat dire straits for a couple of years now. So there is unmistakable irony in what conductor Roger Nierenburg is doing under the heading The Music Paradigm. Nierenburg, music director of a small Connecticut orchestra, has been marketing the experience of leading an orchestra to big corporations as a management training seminar, with the orchestra serving as a visible (and audible) example of the necessity of competent, innovative leadership. The program is just one of many arts-based business training programs now popular with Fortune 500 types.
How To Catch A Pirate
“The music industry’s methods of tracking down suspected music pirates have been revealed for the first time. Using digital fingerprints, or ‘hashes’, investigators say they can tell if an MP3 file was downloaded from an unauthorised service. The industry also tracks ‘metadata’ tags, which provide hidden clues about how files were created.” The methods of detection were revealed in the proceedings of an industry lawsuit against a file-trader known by her screenname, ‘Nycfashiongirl,’ who is accused of offering over 900 copyrighted and illegally obtained songs for free download.
Let Americans In The Booker?
There have been objections to opening up competition for the Booker Prize to Americans. Elena Lappin argues Americans ought to be there: “It is crucial to open this very important literary award to all the best writing in the English language—including the United States. The Booker Prize would then cease to be a tacit celebration of the former British Empire and would come alive with the most powerful and exciting contemporary voices.”
Is This The Device That Will Replace Books?
“Researchers at Hewlett Packard have developed a prototype electronic book which can hold a whole library on a device no bigger than a paperback. The brushed metal device is about one centimetre thick and looks like an oversized handheld computer.”
History’s Great Art Thefts
The theft of a Leonardo painting this week adds to a list of famous art heists in history. Here’s a list of some of the most notorius… “If you’re going to allow public access, particularly to a location of this sort, which is not in the centre of a major city, it is difficult to guard against this type of attack.”