The world has been awash in Mozart this year. Three years from now it’s a major Haydn birthday. “While just about everyone alive has been exposed to Mozart if only on a ring-tone or a lonely bus station, you could play Haydn seek all day long on Oxford Street without finding a single shopper who can name one of his works or whistle a theme. In the Classic FM Hall of Fame, that rough guide to middlebrow taste, Haydn does not rank at all in the top 100 and even at the BBC Proms he gets just three nods in eight long weeks. How, demand the marketing men, do we sell something so resolutely obscure?”
Tag: 08.30.06
Senate Won’t Consider Second Term For Tomlinson
A US Senate committe says it will not take up confirmation for a second term of Kenneth Tomlinson as chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors after a highly critical government report that said he used the office for personal gain.
SAT’s Down (And Fewer Students Taking The Test)
There was a large drop in the average SAT score this year. “A five-point drop in critical reading, to 503, was the largest decline since 1975 and the two-point drop in mathematics, to 518, was the largest dip since 1978.”
Mozart In The Clubs
Classical musicians are moving into clubs. “Purists may shudder at the thought of string quartets spliced with breakbeats and dance grooves, but none of these young musicians, composers and producers sees classical clubbing as a threat to traditional classical music. If anything, they hope that, by introducing classical sounds to a club-going audience who would never usually set foot inside a concert hall, they may breathe new life into the genre.”
Library Book Challenges Fall
The number of books threatened with removal from American library shelves dropped to an all-time low last year. “Challenges have gone up and down over the past few years, but overall have dropped by more than half since Banned Books Week was started. Judith Krug, director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, cited a couple of possible factors for the decline: Librarians are better prepared to organize community support on behalf of a book, and would-be censors are focusing more on online content.”
Orchestra On The Move (Literally)
How do you move a large symphony orchestra around Europe? It’s a ballet of trunks and containers. “The payload has its own itinerary, flying from Toronto to Rome to Athens to begin the tour, while the musicians flew through Frankfurt. The cargo has its own seating arrangement, with each case holding multiple instruments stacked like a Tetris game on pallets loaded into the plane. It also has its own strict program — an important customs document called the carnet that is as strictly adhered to as any concert personnel chart.”
Emmy Ratings Droop Against Pirates
“The annual trophy-fest drew 16.2 million viewers on NBC. It was the Emmy show’s second smallest audience since 1990, when it aired on Fox, which was in its infancy and not available in some parts of the country. Opposite the Emmys, ABC’s Sunday telecast of “The Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl” drew nearly 10 million viewers to become the most watched theatrical film on television this year.”
Investigation Cites Ex-Corporation For Public Broadcasting Chief
Kenneth Tomlinson has been head of CPB until a previous damning investigation last year. He is still chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors. “A year-long State Department investigation has found that the chairman of the agency that oversees Voice of America and other government broadcasting operations improperly used his office, putting a friend on the payroll and running a ‘horse-racing operation’ with government resources.”
Concentration Camp Museum Won’t Return Survivor’s Paintings
Dina Gottliebova Babbitt is a survivor of Auschwitz. While she was there she made watercolor paintings. The paintings are in the Auschwitz Museum, but the 83-year-old Gottliebova Babbitt wants them back. “The Auschwitz museum, which considers the watercolors to be its property, has argued that they are rare artifacts and important evidence of the Nazi genocide, part of the cultural heritage of the world.”
Flood Of Pirate DVDs Only Grows
“According to industry figures, Toronto is the source for 90 per cent of pirated discs sold in Canada. Last week, police shut down an operation that was capable of manufacturing three million discs a year. It was just one of 51 similar busts countrywide this year. In an effort to stem the tide of illegal copying, motion-picture industry officials have been pushing for aggressive enforcement and stiffer penalties for copyright violators, but they were dealt a blow yesterday when the federal Justice Department said it has no plans to change laws.”