The two candidates in Detroit’s mayoral race freely admit that they don’t know a thing about the city’s arts scene, and both are hesitant to commit to any arts funding in the future. The sitting mayor killed off the Department of Culture, Arts, and Tourism last year as part of a plan to battle a massive budget deficit, and Detroit has plenty of civic problems that take priority over the arts. “Those in the arts and cultural communities, who are facing funding woes such as a $1.5-million cut to the Detroit Historical Museums and a $5-million cut to the Detroit Zoo, appreciated the candidates’ attention but remain skeptical.”
Tag: 11.03.05
Musicians Strike Radio City
“Musicians for the Radio City Music Hall’s famous Christmas Spectacular went on strike Wednesday and announced they had the support of other unions at the landmark [New York] theater.” With the annual show scheduled to open tonight, the strike was timed to cause maximum disruption. Nonetheless, the success of the strike may hinge on whether the show’s other unionized workers – the stagehands and the famous dancers known as The Rockettes – honor the picket line. Radio City is planning to go ahead with a prerecorded soundtrack, and the stagehands have yet to commit to a sympathy strike. The Rockettes announced that they would not cross the picket line, but Radio City says they have a no-strike clause in their contract, and are expected to perform.
Ollie The Bear
Oliver Knussen has come a long way since bursting onto the scene as a composing and conducting prodigy at age 14. “Bearded, toweringly tall and nearly as large around, Knussen, 53, lumbers into a room like a slightly disoriented bear. He looks as if he’d just as soon as be eating honey from a crockery jar as writing one of his fastidious musical miniatures.” He has also developed something of a reputation for missing compositional deadlines. However, despite the complexity of some of his work, he has become one of the UK’s most well-known composers, and he is an increasingly welcome guest on the podium of various major orchestras, probably for the quiet passion he brings to the work.
How Recording Has Changed Music
“Recording has directed performance style into a search for greater precision and perfection, with a consequent loss of spontaneity and warmth. Various expressive devices once common in the early twentieth century have been almost outlawed: “portamento” (sliding from one note to another on a stringed instrument); playing the piano with the hands not quite together (Philip calls this dislocation); arpeggiating chords (not playing all the notes of the chord at the same time but one after another), and flexibility of tempo.”
Google Print Debuts
The book digitizing project throws texts of books up on the web in searchable form.
The Mysteries Of Mike Leigh
Mike Leigh has such appeal that even his untitled projects have fans lining up to buy tickets. “No one questions any more that Leigh is a ‘real’ writer, as they sometimes used to when they discovered how fully his actors participated in the creative process. He thinks the confusion was his fault – until 1987, his credit was always ‘devised and directed by’. Then he switched it to ‘written and directed by’. ‘It should always have been that. Nothing you can do about it now’.”
Homes Of The Henge Builders Unearthed
For the first time, archaeologists have excavated homes of prehistoric Neolithic henge builders, in a set of dwellings, some older than Stonehenge, excavated from a Northumberland quarry. “The Neolithic Britons left some of the most spectacular prehistoric monuments in the world, but there have been only scraps of evidence showing where and how they lived. House sites are so rare that some archaeologists believe most people lived a semi-nomadic existence.”