The AM radio station that stepped into South Florida’s classical music void when the local public radio station abandoned the genre three years ago has been sold to a religious broadcaster, and will likely cease its classical programming by the beginning of 2005. WKAT had struggled to attract advertisers since going classical in the fall of 2002, and even arts benefactors in the area weren’t terribly interested in helping the station out. Eventually, the station’s owners were forced to sell in order to pay outstanding bills.
Tag: 10.15.04
Puppetry Getting Over The ‘Kids Only’ Hump
Puppetry is suddenly hot again, with marionettes playing leading roles at the movies, on Broadway, and even at the Metropolitan Opera. These days, students at the University of Connecticut can even major in puppetry. “But all this sophistication can be a bit jarring for some audiences. For many, ‘puppet show’ doesn’t suggest existential crises – just something fun for their kids. And when they get something else, there can be problems.”
Taking Poetry’s Name In Vain
Fans of high-minded pop singers like Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and Billy Corgan like to talk of lyrics as poetry, and to celebrate their favorite performers as not only musical geniuses, but literary lights as well. But such trite assessments may be selling the art of poetry short, says Robert Everett-Green. “Rock poets who break out of their medium and into published poetry are still rare… And yet the cachet of calling oneself a poet continues, even as poetry declines as a subject of public interest.”
Everybody’s Favorite Color
There’s just something about the color blue that seems to excite people. “Remember how cool it was when scientists declared the universe turquoise? What a letdown when they admitted their mistake and pronounced it beige instead. Interesting how a color can be traditional, exciting or electrifying as well. Despite its basic ordinariness as a primary color, blue often manages to be startling or unnatural… Similarly, blue is what stirs the hearts of collectors because, for whatever reason, blue has not been the go-to hue for most creators of things (unless you’re talking Smurfs).”
Author Of Pop Music Encyclopedia Dies
“Robert Lissauer, a music historian whose vast encyclopedia of American popular song, considered the definitive reference book in the field, settled innumerable arguments and started innumerable others, died yesterday… The first edition of Lissauer’s Encyclopedia of Popular Music in America listed more than 19,000 songs, from Aaron Loves Angela to Zsa Zsa.“
Shrek Moving To Broadway
The director behind the runaway Broadway hit, Avenue Q, has been tapped to produce a stage version of the Dreamworks movie Shrek. The production will begin with a non-New York run in 2006, and then move to Broadway shortly thereafter. Playwright David Lindsay-Abaire will write the stage play, and theater and film veteran Sam Mendes will produce.
Literature Regains Its Sex Life
The sexual memoir has been gaining steam (no pun intended) as a literary form in recent years, and far from being near-porn, many of the books read like throwbacks to an age when sex was allowed to be beautiful, and not simply an animal act. “At a time when so much sexual writing aims… to demystify and de-emotionalize sex — to reduce it to a physical and hormonal process not much different from, say, scratching an itch — [the author] belongs to the old tradition of hyperbole and overwriting, the tradition of Lawrence, Norman Mailer, Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin, which sees sex as an avenue to spirituality, to the mystical and sublime.”
Kisselgoff Out (Sort Of), Rockwell In At The Times
John Rockwell has been named as the new chief dance critic of The New York Times, replacing Anna Kisselgoff, who will continue to contribute to the paper. Rockwell is the author of several books, and has been the Times’ jack-of-all-trades over the years, serving as “chief rock critic, classical music critic, European cultural correspondent and Arts & Leisure editor. Most recently, he has been senior cultural correspondent and author of the Reverberations column in the Weekend section.”
Jazz Finds A Home At Lincoln Center
Lincoln Center’s new $128 million performing arts center has finally brought jazz officially into the fold at New York’s flagship musical institution. “No longer will it be squatting in someone else’s territory, as it was at Alice Tully Hall and Avery Fisher Hall. Now Jazz at Lincoln Center can create concerts with a much greater sense of freedom in the practical aspects of scheduling and staging than it could in the past. The new complex, within the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle, includes three performance spaces,” ranging in size and style from a 140-seat nightclub to a full-size hall seating 1,200.
Reports Of Our Demise…
Is the Broadway musical dead, or just hibernating while the theater world decides on the best way to revive the form? After all, in the 500-channel world, it’s difficult to determine whether an art form as broadly based as the musical should be trying to find its niche market, or still seek to appeal to all corners of an increasingly fractured audience. But even if the musical does make a comeback, it’s unlikely that Broadway’s melodies will ever again be recognized as “America’s soundtrack.”