“Mr. Sandor was born in Budapest and studied piano with Bartok and composition with Kodaly at the Liszt Academy of Music there. He began to travel widely as a concert pianist in the 1930’s, and settled in the United States after his American debut at Carnegie Hall in 1939.”
Tag: 12.14.05
A Solution For The Museum Looted Art Mess?
American museums should not grudgingly cough up artifacts piece by piece, like thieves caught with swag. They should make a virtue out of adversity and offer to share their disputed antiquities en masse with plaintiff countries–this applies above all to the Getty, which can afford to lead the world by example and precedent. The Getty should flaunt its courage with a grand public change of heart. It should offer to build Getty museums abroad in the Guggenheim Bilbao manner to house its antiquities in style and to create a system of permanently shared collections.”
Britain’s Most Popular Building (Or One Of Its Biggest Eyesores?)
The new Scottish parliament building was voted the UK’s 8th most popular in a poll, just a day after it was voted in another survey as one of the country’s biggest eyesores. The Eden Project in Cornwall has been voted the UK’s best-loved modern building.
Detroit Mayor Closes Historical Museum
Acting quickly on a re-election mandate to fix the city’s finances, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick on Tuesday announced the layoffs of 400 city workers, the closing of the Detroit Historical Museum and transfer of management of the Detroit Zoo.
Ready To Overdose On Mozart?
“Wherever you go in the coming year, you won’t escape Mozart. The 250th anniversary of his birth on January 27 1756 is being celebrated with joyless efficiency as a tourist magnet to the land of his birth and a universal sales pitch for his over-worked output. The complete 626 works are being marketed on record in two special-offer super coffers. All the world’s orchestras will be playing Mozart, wall to wall, starting with the Vienna Philharmonic on tour this weekend. Mozart is the superstore wallpaper of classical music, the composer who pleases most and offends least.”
Florida Orchestra Seeks A Home Of Its Own
The Florida Orchestra is raising money for a new administrative home in St. Petersburg. The orchestra has been leasing office space in Tampa.
Study: Wikipedia Rates High In Accuracy
“A study published Dec. 14 by the journal Nature found that in a random sample of 42 science entries, Wikipedia had an average of just one more inaccuracy per entry than the Encyclopedia Britannica. Nature also polled more than 1,000 scientists who have published papers in Nature’s prestigious pages and found that 17% consulted Wikipedia on a weekly basis.”
Ground Zero And Culture? Maybe They’re Incompatible
Is there still a chance that some cultural vision will emerge for the site of the World Trade Center? “Given the intense emotions associated with the 9/11 terrorist attacks, some panelists suggested that the competing visions for the 16-acre site – memorial, business hub, neighborhood gathering place – were ultimately incompatible.”
Dumping On The Turner Prize (No Matter What)
“Over the years since its low-key beginnings the Turner has provided the media with many healthy inches of outrage. Now this year they complain that the show was not shocking enough. The Daily Mail says of Starling’s Shedboatshed: ‘To the casual observer it is just a shack.’ Maybe ‘casual observers’ should stay out of art galleries.”
Earliest-Known Mayan Painting Discovered
A major find of an ancient Mayan painting changes what we know about the history of Mayan culture. “The find, a 30-by-3-foot mural in vivid colors depicting the ancient culture’s mythology of creation and kingship, is the centerpiece of a larger mural, parts of which were first discovered and exposed in Guatemala four years ago. New radiocarbon tests revealed the painting to be 200 years older than originally estimated, dating to about 100 B.C.”