All-Music, All-The-Time – Are We The Poorer For It?

In the era of the iPod, any music is available at any time, wherever you are. But Bernard Holland wonders if maybe this easy access doesn’t cheapen the musical experience. “Is it all too easy? Any music critic will tell you that the eager anticipation of new recordings fades with their unsolicited, almost daily flow into the office. Would knowing a little less actually make us smarter, or at least hungrier? I do wonder if spiritual muscle tone is being softened.”

Bloom: Key To Cleveland’s Renaissance

“In 1915, Cleveland’s city fathers had the foresight to recognize that if Cleveland was to become a major business center, its citizens would require a first-rate cultural environment. In that year, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Cleveland Play House were established. At this critical juncture in Cleveland’s history, we desperately need arts, corporate and civic leaders to come forward and demonstrate the same understanding. The arts are one of Cleveland’s great success stories. But even a newcomer such as myself knows it is one of America’s best-kept secrets.”

Starting Over (Takes A Mass Firing?)

Should a theatre’s incoming artistic director fire his resident ensemble acting company and starting over? The Denver Center Theatre Company’s outgoing director suggests the move is essential. “If anyone came in from the outside and made the blanket statement, ‘I want everyone to stay,’ then I would say that person is not qualified to take the job”

Talk About Your Last-Minute Replacements

Baritone Ian Vayne thought he was headed to his local opera house to spend a relaxing evening watching a new production of Bizet’s Carmen. Instead, Vayne wound up on stage in the role of Escamillo after the scheduled singer was felled by a heart attack. He knew the part, but had only fifteen minutes to learn the staging and choreography for the show. He received a standing ovation for his trouble, as well as the undying gratitude of the company.

Expanding Opera’s Reach

Back in 1996, the Houston Grand Opera decided that it was high time for it to acknowledge the demographic shift underway in the U.S., and premiered a new opera, Florencia, written in Spanish and focused on Latin American sensibilities. “Drenched in the seductive atmosphere of Magic Realism, it became a surprise hit which has not only been revived in Houston but staged as well in Los Angeles, Seattle, Mexico City and even Manaos,” the Brazilian opera house where Florencia was set. Now, the company has commissioned a second opera from the same composer, leading to talk of a new place for Hispanic culture in the operatic literature.

Hollywood Pushing Out Indies In Foreign Markets

The indie films and B-movie flicks that once constituted the bulk of the American presence at foreign theaters are rapidly being replaced by big-name Hollywood movies. “As [DVD] sales have been replacing video rentals, globe-spanning media conglomerates have begun using ‘specialty’ film wings like Disney’s Miramax, Sony’s Screen Gems, News Corporation’s Fox Searchlight and Warner Independent Pictures to fill the demand of foreign markets with their own products, leaving less room both for independent sellers and for the small local distributors.”

Politics & Profit

Political polarization may make for a country full of angry people, but for publishers of politically themed books, the currently inflamed passions of the U.S. voting population are nothing short of a financial windfall, as readers snatch up blatantly partisan tomes by the dozens. Of course, the predominence of such aggressively one-sided books is coming at the cost of more serious and even-handed political analysis, but as one publsher puts it, “To publish for the middle of the road right now would be suicide.”

Just So Long As They Don’t Play That Awful “We Deliver” Jingle

A band called Postal Service (so named because the members lived in different cities and mailed each other snippets of music as part of their songwriting process) recently received a cease-and-desist letter from, you guessed it, the U.S. Postal Service. It could have been just one more story of overaggressive copyright enforcement in a situation in which no one was losing money or getting hurt, but instead, the band and the mail carriers worked out a deal. As a result, the band gets to keep its name and its stock of albums, and the U.S. Postal Service has a brand new way to promote itself.