Emil Kang, the young arts executive who abruptly resigned from the top leadership post of the Detroit Symphony last December, has surfaced at the University of North Carolina, as the school’s new executive director for arts. Kang’s duties will include managing UNC’s largest arts venues and “promoting the arts through the development of the Arts Common, UNC’s decades-long project to create a central space for the arts on North Campus.
Tag: 11.15.04
Election Notwithstanding, Runnicles Will Stay
Scottish conductor Donald Runnicles, who had speculated that he might choose to leave the U.S. if President Bush were reelected, has apparently decided to remain stateside after all, agreeing to a 3-year extension of his contract as music director of the San Francisco Opera. The new contract will keep Runnicles in San Francisco through the 2008-09 season, which will end several months after President Bush leaves office.
Ganter Chosen To Lead PS 122
Vallejo Gantner, the director of the Dublin Fringe Festival, has been chosen as the new director of PS 122, New York’s bastion of avant garde theatre and dance. Mark Russell, his predecessor, announced his resignation in December after two decades in the job.
Cuba’s Dance Phenomenon
Cuba has become the breeding ground for some of the world’s best young dancers. How could a poor, blockaded island of 11 million people do this? It cannot just be political engineering…
La Fenice Retakes Venice
The reopening of Venice’s La Fenice, one of Europe’s historic opera houses, was a grand civic occasion. “With le tout Venice and more on hand, the operatic reopening was as much a political and social occasion as a musical moment. Special guests included King Albert and Queen Paola of Belgium; Romano Prodi, the outgoing president of the European Commission who is busily planning his return to Italian politics; and a host of ministers and officials. Venetians who simply wanted to be there paid the equivalent of $1,290 each for the privilege.”
Redefining MoMA
Here is a new building for the Museum of Modern Art that respects history. “The building, which reopens on Saturday, may disappoint those who believe the museum’s role should be as much about propelling the culture forward as about preserving our collective memory. Its focus, instead, is a conservative view of the past: the building’s clean lines and delicately floating planes are shaped by the assumption that Modernity remains our central cultural experience.”
A Chinese Art Boom
China’s newly wealthy are buying up entire collections of art, sending prices soaring. “Awakening at last to their own cultural heritage, which was sold off to the West at knock-down prices at the turn of the century, the new rich are reversing that trend and are bringing the art works home. Former peasant farmers, who now wear diamond-studded gold watches, are investing in private museums to put their new-found works on display.”
MoMA At 20 Paces…
The new Museum of Modern Art building is a fun place to walk through, writes Adrian Searle. “Whether Moma is the museum best placed to collect not the art of our time but the art of the future is another matter. Current American art doesn’t seem to matter to the degree it once did. And Moma shows us that, to a large extent, the art that has counted most in its history has been made elsewhere.”
The Adelaide Ring Will Not Be Broadcast
Australia’s first Ring Cycle, premiering this month in Adelaide, has been turned down for broadcast by the country’s largest TV and radio network. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation says that the fees which would be commanded by the performers involved simply make a broadcast unthinkable. The production costs for the cycle are already at AUS$15.3 million, and a CD project is planned for a 2005 release.