Sixty years after Allied bombs destroyed it, the Dresden cathedral has reopened after a $215 million restoration. “For 47 years, Dresden residents had known the Frauenkirche, or Church of Our Lady, as a 43-foot-high mound of rubble flanked by two jagged walls. That was all that remained after British and U.S. planes strafed the city with firebombs on the night of Feb. 13-14, 1945.”
Tag: 10.31.05
Looking For The Real Marion True
Embattled former Getty curator Marion True has long had a reputation as an upright, outstanding curator, held in high esteem by those who worked with her. “True isn’t speaking publicly. But friends and colleagues paint a portrait of a woman of ferocious intellect and daunting memory, a vase maven who reads Latin, Greek and Italian and bestows names from mythology on her cats. This Marion True knits expertly, took up the lute as an adult, and always seemed the very picture of prudence. Now True’s calendar reads like the script for a Greek drama.”
Cultural Bellyflop In Downtown Manhattan
Where’s all this cultural activity that was supposed to be created in Lower Manhattan after 9/11. There’s less, not more, now, and all the fancy plans and pronouncements about what was going to happen have amounted to little. Artists are becoming resigned…
UK Orchestras Face Crippling Insurance Bill
Britain’s symphony orchestras have been thrown into crisis, as the government says orchestras have failed to pay their share of National Insurance assessments and now owe £33 million. The debt could force several major orchestras to fold. “Since a change in working laws in 1998, freelance singers and musicians have been classed as employees for NI purposes, but self-employed for tax purposes. The issue affects ever major orchestra and smaller orchestra in this country and would have huge effects upon how they operate.”
UK Orchestras – Closed For Back-Payments?
UK orchestras’ insurance bill would cripple orchestras if not shut them down. “In the case of the Philharmonia Orchestra, for instance, it could mean an extra £500,000 tax a year, plus arrears backdated to 2000. In the case of the London Symphony Orchestra, the back-payments would amount to £8m.”
The Future Of Orchestral Programming
“Programming decisions are crucial for orchestras, and the preferences of the subscribers they hope to attract can be difficult to gauge. Symphony orchestras may have been invented in the steam age, but there is a technological revolution going on behind the scenes that will change the way they do business.” Increasingly, orchestras are integrating new technologies into their ticket sales and marketing departments, and the sales information generated is poised to have a huge impact on what we hear in future orchestral seasons. “It’s to do with market segmentation, and shaping concerts programs in a way that will appeal to people with different musical interests and levels of knowledge.”