Some big recording companies are protecting their CD’s from being copied or locking the format so they can’t be transfered to an iPod. “But these decisions aren’t sitting well with some of the artists whose CDs have been secured. A number of leading acts are using their Web sites to instruct fans on how to work around the technology.”
Tag: 10.05.05
National Symphony Gets A New Conductor
Washington’s National Symphony has signed on Ivan Fischer as its new principal guest conductor beginning with the 2006-07 season. “The initial contract will be for three years, meaning that Fischer may be the senior artistic figure within the orchestra when the present music director, Leonard Slatkin, steps down at the end of the 2007-08 season.”
Delay In Nobel Lit Announcement
Awarding of this year’s Nobel Prize for literature has been delayed a week. “By tradition, the 18-member group that makes up the 219-year-old institution, announces on a Tuesday that it will name the winner the following Thursday at 7 a.m. EDT. It’s also led to speculation that academy members may be locked in fierce debate as to who should take home this year’s prize, which includes a $1.3 million prize, a gold medal and a diploma, along with a guaranteed boost in sales.”
Another 9/11 Memorial Clashes With Critics
This time it’s a design to commenmorate the crash of flight 93 in a Pennsylvania field. “The debates suggest an age-of-terror version of the fights over identity politics, provocative artworks and the Western canon that flared up 20 years ago. In the case of Flight 93, the Hallmark-card Minimalism that is now the lingua franca for memorials — and the design world’s version of political correctness — has clashed with the notion that what we ought to remember about its passengers, above all else, is their onboard rebellion.”
Between Theatre And Dance
“In theater, there has been a movement in recent decades away from word-driven narrative. Theater today – interesting theater, not formulaic Broadway commerciality – is as much about movement and image and multimedia and even song as the actorly articulation of text. Not that words still aren’t central to the art, but they’ve lost their arrogant monopoly. In dance, we live in a time of worldwide reaction against the excesses of pure abstraction.”