Joffrey Ballet's win-win with Groupon is a lesson for Chicago's cultural institutions
Chris Jones
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Theater Loop (Chicago Tribune)
On Aug. 18, the Groupon online “deal of the day” offered discounted subscriptions to the upcoming season of the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago. Within 24 hours, 2,338 people had taken the bait, the Joffrey announced the following day in a press release. To offer some perspective, the Joffrey had about 4,900 subscribers on Aug. 17. In other words, the ballet company saw a nearly 50 percent increase in its subscription base in one day. And they said subscriptions were dying. Or dead. Nonsense.
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Opera for Beginners
Magda Krance and Emily Lange
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Today's Chicago Woman
What? You live in this magnificent city and you’ve never been to a performance by Lyric Opera of Chicago? You may think you know what you’re missing, or that it’s not your glass of Champagne, but we’re here to set the record straight.
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Online Giving Meets Social Networking
Amy Wallace
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New York Times
Crowdrise aims to make raising money for a cause not just easy, but also fun. Setting up a page to support something you care about takes less than a minute. Then, friends and family can be invited to be sponsors by donating any amount of money, large or small. You don’t have to run a marathon. You can volunteer at a soup kitchen or do whatever strikes your fancy.
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B.C. adds $7M to Arts Council budget
Staff
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CBC News
B.C. Culture Minister Kevin Krueger has found an additional $7 million for the B.C. Arts Council. After being in the hot seat for the past three weeks over cuts to cultural funding, Krueger announced Wednesday that the province would give the council $7 million from its 2010 Sports and Arts Legacy Fund.
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At Lincoln Center, Information Is Architecture
Robin Pogrebin
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The New York Times
The electronic component of the redesign of Lincoln Center includes — in addition to the words that have been adorning the risers of the new grand entrance stair on Columbus Avenue for the last few months — five screens at the back of the new bleachers facing Alice Tully Hall, scrolling text on the West 65th Street staircase to the north plaza, and 13 new vertical 4-by-8-foot L.E.D. screens, or blades, lined up along the south side of West 65th Street between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues.
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Arts Biz Pitches 1% Solution
Miriam Kreinin Souccar
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Crain's New York Business
Stung by the recession, budget cuts and a drop in charitable giving, New York City's cultural institutions are launching a major campaign to convince the city to allocate 1% of its annual budget to arts funding.
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Met opera adds 300 theaters to its HD broadcasts
Verena Dobnik
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The Associated Press
The close-ups were so tight you could see a tear slowly trickling down the tenor's face — and that the soprano's fingernail polish didn't match the color on her toes, though she did nail the high C.
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Artists tell our truths
David Adams Richards
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CBC News
"One doesn't care if Shakespeare is great when they are frightened or in pain," says George Orwell — true and defining, about our idea of culture. Culture is a word that is often thought of as being once removed from our real world, that the world we live in is somehow independent of the culture we seek. This is as true in New Brunswick as anywhere else. I've known writers and artists who've gone years close to starving — or at least living on a subsistent level. Some in Fredericton, some on the Miramichi. And the very word culture becomes something of a problem when we try to relate how necessary those artists and musicians are.
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The San Francisco Opera: Making opera elitist no more?
Ellen Cushing
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East Bay Express
With ticket prices topping out at hundreds of dollars, opera isn't exactly known for putting a premium on mass appeal. So as the average opera fan's age creeps toward seventy, and as fine arts organizations of all kinds continue to be hit hard by the recession and its aftershocks, opera companies are faced with a choice: diversify their audience or die out. But while the San Francisco Opera, one of the country's oldest and most well-regarded companies, prepares to mount its impressive and ambitious 88th fall season, it's finding ways to stay relevant — and afloat — without sacrificing its commitment to high-quality and artistically authentic opera.
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Utah newspaper cutting staff in half
AP
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Associated Press
The Deseret News, Utah’s longest-publishing daily newspaper, said yesterday it will cut nearly half of its staff and consolidate breaking news operations with affiliated television and radio operations.
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Opera San José plans 'gigantic' production for West Coast premiere of Anna Karenina
Richard Scheinin
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San José Mercury News
What an undertaking for Opera San José: Anna Karenina is the most elaborate production ever attempted by the company, with a budget of about $1 million — made possible by a $500,000 grant from the Tahoe-based Carol Franc Buck Foundation, better known for underwriting big-ticket productions at San Francisco Opera.
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Philip Eisenberg, S.F. Opera prompter, 74
Joshua Kosman
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San Francisco Chronicle
Philip Eisenberg, who spent three decades shepherding the world's greatest opera singers through performances from his spot in the prompter's box at the San Francisco Opera and other prominent houses, died August 16 of natural causes.
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DSO players OK strike, but it won't happen yet
Mark Stryker
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The Detroit Free Press
The musicians of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra on Saturday rejected management's final two contract proposals and authorized its union leaders to call a strike. The two sides have been deadlocked in a battle over steep pay cuts that would, in the most contentious proposal on the table, leave base salaries for veteran players at $73,800 in three years, 29% lower than the $104,650 they make today. Battered by the recession, the DSO has been hemorrhaging millions every year — it expects to lose $9 million in 2010 — and management says the cuts are needed to keep the orchestra alive. The players say such draconian reductions would transform the DSO into a second-class symphony.
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Auto-Tune turns the operatic ideal into a shoddy joke
Philip Kennicott
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The Washington Post
What would the Florentine Camerata think of Antoine Dodson? The Camerata, a group of intellectuals, poets and musicians working in Florence near the end of the 16th century, was the inventor of opera. Dodson, a young man from Huntsville, Ala., was interviewed on TV after someone invaded his apartment and tried to rape his sister. The July 29 interview, a wild, rhetorical performance by an obviously outraged brother, was turned into a musical bestseller by some pranksters in New York. The "Bed Intruder Song," created using digital technology that can turn speech into musical tones, hasn't just gone viral — it has sold thousands of copies on iTunes and appeared on the Billboard Hot 100 list.
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Beijing Opera, a Historical Treasure in Fragile Condition
Richard Bernstein
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The New York Times
It would be premature to say that Beijing opera has turned into an antique relic, but clearly it is not what it was in the late 18th to early 20th century, when it was northern China’s most popular theatrical entertainment. The big national spectacles of recent years have included the 2008 Olympic opening ceremony, which, while drawing on China’s rich tradition, did not echo the traditional opera. There was also the lavish production of Puccini’s Turandot, directed by the celebrated filmmaker Zhang Yimou. That production was a Western import that was once banned in this country because it was deemed insulting to China.
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$5m gift allows Wagner operas to come to town
Robin Usher
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The Age
Every opera needs a heroine, and as well as the Rhinemaidens and the goddess Brunnhilde in the massive new production of Wagner's Ring Cycle coming to Melbourne, there is one of the city's most prominent philanthropists, Lonely Planet co-founder Maureen Wheeler. With her husband, Tony, she is contributing $5 million to the $15.5 million cost of mounting Opera Australia's biggest production, Wagner's masterpiece made up of four works over 15 hours.
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Another music critic re-assigned
Tim Mangan
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Classical Life
That would be me. Beginning on September 13, I will be writing the People column for the Orange County Register five days a week. I’ll be covering the likes of Lindsay Lohan, Mel Gibson, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Dr. Laura (did I spell those right?) and all the other worthies whom readers can’t get enough of. Drunken tirades, courtroom dramas and sex scandals will be the grist of my mill. No joke. I will continue to be a music critic, as time allows.
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The battle for Bayreuth
Kate Connolly
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The Guardian (U.K.)
Richard Wagner's great-granddaughter Katharina Wagner is taking on the purists at opera's most exclusive festival — and trying to exorcise its Nazi past.
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Sites in Like, Not Love, With Facebook Link
Geoffrey A. Fowler, Amir Efrati
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The Wall Street Journal
Facebook Inc. is finding new kinds of websites to "Like," in the parlance of the popular social-networking service. But some of the sites are trying to figure out if the admiration is mutual. Since April, the company has been trying to persuade sites to add a free "Like" button, which lets Web users show their interest in a page with one click and notify their Facebook friends about it. As of July, 350,000 websites, most of them news, sports and publishing sites, had added what Facebook calls "social plug-ins"—of which the "Like" button is the most prominent example.
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Arts institutions cultivate Latino audiences as traditional base dwindles
Erica Demarest
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News21.com
It’s been described as the best party in town.
Not exactly the image “opera outreach program” conjures for most people, but with live music, animated conversation and authentic paella, the Austin Lyric Opera’s La Noche de Opera feels more like a family gathering than an organized event, which chair Amalia Rodriguez-Mendoza says is part of its charm.
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COC to unveil standing room only spots
Staff
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CBC News
The Canadian Opera Company is adding standing room only spaces to its new home after a number of sell-out shows in recent years. The Toronto-based company announced on Tuesday that it has installed standing room spots for up to 60 people, with tickets priced at $12 each.
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Smackdown: Concert Simulcasts
Staff
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Soundcheck (New York Public Radio)
As opera houses and orchestras simulcast their performances into movie theatres across the country, critics charge that it’s turning classical music into a cheap reality show. Fans say it’s as addictive as popcorn. It's our Soundcheck Smackdown debate. Tim Page, professor of music and journalism at the University of Southern California and former Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic at the Washington Post and Drew McManus, an orchestra consultant who writes the blog Adaptistration, debate whether these screenings are a way to make opera accessible to more people … or just cheap seats.
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Opera Lover Targets Young Patrons With $25 Seats
Erica Orden
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The Wall Street Journal
At 80 years old, Agnes Varis is trying to make opera audiences younger. "Your average opera-goer cannot be 65—give me break," said Ms. Varis. "You're not going to keep an opera house alive with that." Ms. Varis, the founder and former president of several pharmaceutical companies, including Agvar Chemicals, Marsam Pharmaceuticals and Aegis Pharmaceuticals, is on a mission to build a younger audience for the Metropolitan Opera, where she is a trustee. Toward that goal, she has donated $2.5 million to subsidize a program offering $25 orchestra tickets for all but two weekend performances of the company's 2010-11 season — 13,600 seats in all.
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O.C. Register's classical-music critic to cover celebrity beat
David Ng
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Culture Monster (LA Times)
And so another classical-music journalist falls in the forest. Timothy Mangan, who covers the classical-music beat for the Orange County Register as a critic and reporter, wrote on his personal blog Wednesday that the newspaper has re-assigned him to the celebrity beat. He said that beginning Sept. 13, he will be writing the "People" column five days a week for the Register. In his new job, he will be covering such page-view generating notables as Lindsay Lohan, Zsa-Zsa Gabor and Mel Gibson. "No joke," he wrote.
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City Opera Plans Concert Series
Erica Orden
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The Wall Street Journal
Some of Broadway's best are taking the stage for New York City Opera's forthcoming new concert series, the company announced Monday when it disclosed full casting details for its 2010-11 season. The concert series was created to take advantage of the configuration possibilities brought about by the recent renovation of the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, where the company performs.
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Detroit Symphony pay feud: Is world-class stature at stake?
Mark Stryker
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Detroit Free Press
Three years after an eleventh-hour deal narrowly averted a strike by the musicians of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, management and players once again are on the brink of a work stoppage. Except this time, the chances appear far greater that they might actually fall into the abyss. At stake is the future of one of metro Detroit's cultural treasures, a symphony widely regarded as among the nation's best and a local symbol of excellence even for those who don't know Mozart from Mahler. The conflict is rooted in proposed base salary cuts of 28% in the first year, from $104,650 to about $75,000. Management says the cuts are crucial to the survival of the recession-battered DSO, which is hemorrhaging cash and mortgaged up to its piccolos. The players say the cuts would downgrade the orchestra permanently from its status among the country's elite.
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Keeping the arts alive, even in a recession
Bill Radke, Randy Cohen
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American Public Media
Bill Radke speaks with Randy Cohen of Americans for the Arts about how contributions to American arts nonprofits have been faring through the recession and why companies and people should support the arts.
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Plays beamed into cinemas: is this the future of theatre?
Andrew Dickson
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The Guardian (U.K.)
The Traverse theatre in Edinburgh has a cute name for this year's series of morning play readings: Impossible Things Before Breakfast. Technically, it's a misnomer — your ticket includes breakfast, or at least a bacon buttie and a splash of coffee — but in other respects the title, borrowed from Alice in Wonderland, seems fair enough. Now the Traverse is attempting something that, while not impossible, would once have seemed recklessly ambitious: tonight it is beaming these two playlets and three more to 30 cinemas around the UK and Ireland.
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Critic in the Courtroom
Terry Teachout
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The Wall Street Journal
I've always wanted to write a book about the fine arts called "What Were They Thinking?" If I do, one of the chapters will be about how the Cleveland Plain Dealer demoted Don Rosenberg, its classical-music critic, and how Mr. Rosenberg responded by hauling his bosses into court. This is, as you probably guessed, one of those stories in which everybody ends up looking bad — especially since the resulting damage to the reputations of both Mr. Rosenberg and the paper could have been forestalled with a little common sense.
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On a Quest To Offer Arias In English
Matthew Gurewitsch
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The New York Times
Opera in translation was once commonplace. In the age of titles, many think the practice is archaic. But not Peter Moores, a 78-year-old Englishman knighted in 2003 for his charitable services to the arts.
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Are you ready for Facebook Places?
Andrew Taylor
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The Artful Manager
If your arts organization is located in physical space (which most are), and if your current or potential constituents have Facebook accounts (and most do), and if many of those use mobile digital devices or smart phones, take a moment with your marketing, development, and service team (which I know might all be you) and consider Facebook Places.
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Mixing it up is not so easy for opera
Richard Nilsen
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The Arizona Republic
Symphony audiences are not opera audiences. Although there is considerable overlap, there are notable differences. And the ballet also brings out its own. "It's funny," says Phoenix Symphony music director Michael Christie, "there's some magic wall between the opera and symphony worlds." The audiences that support Nixon in China when semi-staged by the Phoenix Symphony aren't necessarily the same ones who clamor for yet one more Madama Butterfly at Arizona Opera. And the programming strategy of one won't always work for the other.
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The case of the missing conductor
Jaime J. Weinman
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Macleans.ca
James Levine is one of the most famous conductors in North America, holding down two of its biggest jobs: musical director of the Metropolitan Opera and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. But he can’t always show up for either job. Jeremy Eichler, a music critic for the Boston Globe, told Maclean’s that the 67-year-old conductor “has for years struggled with back problems,” and over the past year, those problems have caused him to cancel many dates, throwing two cities into musical chaos. It turns out the most important thing about a conductor is not how insightful he is at interpreting Beethoven, but whether he’s in shape to get up on the podium.
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Unfinished business in Dallas arts world
Staff
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The Dallas Morning News
What kind of trouble lurks behind the facades in the Dallas Arts District? Aside from personal reasons that DSO president/chief executive officer Doug Adams and AT&T PAC CEO Mark Nerenhausen cited for their resignations, financial stresses at both organizations undoubtedly played a role. That reality should get the attention of a community that was fabulously generous with $354 million in gifts to open the two new performance centers.
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Galas That Raised Over $1 Million: How They Did It
Cherie Louise Turner
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Vivanista
We all love a magical gala event. But what we love even more is a magical gala event that raises a lot of money for the organization we’re passionate about. A high mark of success for any gala is a million dollars raised, or more
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The Best-Ever Social Media Campaigns
Victoria Taylor
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Forbes
[Two ads by Old Spice and Burger King] are among the best-ever social media campaigns identified by Forbes.com and a group of experts. Forbes tapped three experts to rank the 20 best-ever social media campaigns.
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This is Opera?
Linda Chiavaroli
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Ford Theatres
When LeRoy Villanueva was an 8-year-old attending school in the San Fernando Valley, he was plucked from among dozens of youngsters to become a member of the California Boys’ Choir.
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Opera sung to airline passengers at 30,000ft
Caroline Shearing
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The Telegraph (U.K.)
Members of the Prague State Opera, including the soprano Vera Likérová, performed for passengers aboard a Bmibaby flight from Manchester to Prague.
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Opera expanding its reach
Jody Feinberg
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The Patriot Ledger
Gowns and white gloves are long gone from opera audiences, who now are as likely to wear jeans and munch on popcorn.
This Sunday, a La Scala production of Bizet’s Carmen will be shown in high definition with surround sound at Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline.
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Theater Actress Sues Over Green Day Musical Promo
Eriq Gardner
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ABC News
Producers of "American Idiot," the anti-establishment Broadway adaptation of a Green Day album, have been sued by a former cast member who isn't happy about the way she's been exploited. Morgan Weed, who served as an understudy for the lead female role of "Whatshername," claims in a new lawsuit that the production company filmed her performing in rehearsals without consent and used the footage to promote the show on television, in print and online.
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Cut above as Figaro goes to the flicks
Clare Morgan
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The Sydney Morning Herald
Opera Australia is about to gain a worldwide audience following a deal to screen its Sydney Opera House performances in cinemas around Australia and overseas. Australian and international screenings are likely before the end of the year after the deal with CinemaLive, which produces and distributes cultural content including music concerts, ballet and theatre performances.
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The Museum Is Watching You
Isaac Arnsdorf
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The Wall Street Journal
More museums are paying to send stealth observers through their galleries. Based on what they see, the museums may rearrange art or rewrite the exhibit notes. Their efforts reflect the broader change in the mission of museums: It's no longer enough to hang artfully curated works. Museum exhibits are expected to be interactive and engaging. As well, many foundations and donors are requiring proof that their funding is well-spent, and the studies provide data to show a rise in traffic or exhibit engagement.
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Random Act Of Operatic Culture
Julie Rose
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wfae.org
Over the last 20 years, attendance has declined for cultural mainstays such as the opera, symphony and ballet. That's according to a study by the National Endowment for the Arts, and it's led the Knight Foundation to go on the offensive with a guerrilla-style initiative to bring the arts literally to the people. The strategy debuted Tuesday in Charlotte at the noontime farmer's market in South End.
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A good economist knows the true value of the arts
John Kay, Financial Times (U.K.)
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johnkay.com
Many people underestimate the contribution disease makes to the economy. In Britain, more than a million people are employed to diagnose and treat disease and care for the ill. Thousands of people build hospitals and surgeries, and many small and medium-size enterprises manufacture hospital supplies. Illness contributes about 10 per cent of the U.K.’s economy: the government does not do enough to promote disease.
Such reasoning is identical to that of studies sitting on my desk that purport to measure the economic contribution of sport, tourism and the arts. These studies point to the number of jobs created, and the ancillary activities needed to make the activities possible. They add up the incomes that result. Reporting the total with pride, the sponsors hope to persuade us not just that sport, tourism and the arts make life better, but that they contribute to something called “the economy”.
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