“The operator of a Russian Web site that sells music cheaply went on a media offensive to deny accusations that it violates copyrights on songs by major artists… AllofMP3.com typically charges under $1 for an entire album and just cents per track.” The squabble could serve as an important battle in a U.S. effort to force Russia to crack down on intellectual property violations.
Tag: 10.19.06
South African Museums Build The Future
A new generation of museums in South Africa not only tells the past, but tries to influence the future. “We want these museums to have a deep impact: to move people intensely, to inspire them to go out and build a better future. We want people to come out feeling compelled to work for a better society.”
SF Civic Art Collection Slipping Through The Bureaucratic Cracks
The city of San Francisco is a major art collector, but you’d never know it by the way many of the pieces in the collection get treated. ” San Francisco owns more than 3,000 pieces of art, acquired mainly through commissions and gifts and valued at about $30 million. But decades of poor record keeping and other factors have landed work by noted artists” in a dirty, wet basement room of a city hospital.
Atlanta Hall On Hold Pending Future Donations
Work on the Atlanta Symphony’s proposed new concert hall in the city’s downtown has come to a grinding halt as the project’s CEO announced yet another reassessment of the location and design of the building. “Fund-raising for the new hall has stalled… Although the symphony has raised a third of the projected cost of the new center, officials have said they need another third to come from city and state government sources. To date, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin and Gov. Sonny Perdue have yet to budget the ASO’s request.”
Seattle Blowup Unlikely To Lead To Change At The Top
The dustup over Seattle Symphony music director Gerard Schwarz has escalated into a full-scale brawl over the last few weeks, with some musicians loyal to Schwarz claiming harassment, and others in the orchestra insisting that the allegations are merely a reaction to a small, bullying cabal which is losing its grip on power at the SSO. But the bottom line hasn’t changed: “Schwarz has lost some of the orchestra (just how large the disgruntled contingent is remains in dispute), but not all of it, and he appears to have the backing of the symphony’s board. It may be uncomfortable for all involved, but as long as concertgoers like what they hear from the stage, internal unhappiness won’t be an issue.”
Overnight Sensation
“Of all the characteristics which define Argentinian tenor Marcelo Alvarez, one shouts loudest: he had never been to an opera until he was 32… Within a year, he had made a celebrated operatic debut at La Fenice, Venice, the theatre which kickstarted the careers of Maria Callas and Luciano Pavarotti. Now 44, Alvarez ranks as a colossus of the operatic scene. How could all this have happened so quickly?”
Ordway Center Breaks Even (With A Little Help)
St. Paul’s Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, which serves as home base for the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and Minnesota Opera, as well as hosting traveling theatre productions, is officially in the black for the fourth year in a row, following years of fiscal struggle. However, the center had to take $1.7 million out of its endowment to break even. “The Ordway is mulling a joint campaign with its resident arts organizations… to create [a separate endowment] that would help to underwrite the cost of performances at the Ordway.”
Canadian University Gets Back Nazi Loot
“Concordia University has recovered what it hopes will be the first of many paintings that belonged to a prominent Jewish art collector who fled Germany and moved to Canada.”
Washington Opera Takes To The Mall
The company will simulcast “Madame Butterfly” outside on the National Mall. “There’s a central question here — and it is not only a question in Washington but in New York and San Francisco and in all the great opera companies. Will these new technology initiatives raise revenue or is revenue not the primary goal? I believe that if we allow the next generation of young people greater access to the opera now — through simulcasts, radio, special events, lower-priced tickets, free tickets and so on — they are much more likely to support the opera later on.”
Gehry Goes Underground In Philly
Frank Gehry has signed on to design an expansion for the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It will be entirely underground. “There is a kind of modesty thing. Most of us, we don’t set out to do the Bilbao effect, as it’s being called. It’d be a real challenge to do something that’s virtually hidden, that could become spectacular.”