If You Have a Spare $200 Million or So …

… you could buy the rights to what is probably Broadway’s greatest back catalog. The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization, the private company which controls the rights to such shows as Carousel, The King and I, South Pacific and The Sound of Music, is up for auction.

The War of the Brass and the Woodwinds

It was probably Professor Peter Schickele (a.k.a. PDQ Bach) who first composed a musical work that actually set different musicians at each other’s throats (the Concerto for Two Pianos vs. Orchestra), although one wonders if it hadn’t been done before — the way some composers have orchestrated their works as if the instrumental sections were in a bear-baiting pit (yes, I’m looking at you, Richard Wagner).

At any rate, Jeff Curnow, the former principal trumpet of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, tears the lid off the simmering warfare going on between the brass section and the woodwinds in this helpful, animated commercial (”Penetrating sonic target barriers”) for a line of weapons-grade mouthpieces.

Anthony Hopkins and the DSO

We all know that Anthony Hopkins is a great actor (an Oscar and three other nominations ought to prove that). But what kind of composer is he? You can find out Oct. 17 when he comes to Dallas for the world premiere of his original compositions, played by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. And you can possibly attend for free by e-mailing clayton@landmarktheatres.com with the subject line “Anthony Hopkins” plus your name and mailing address in the body of the message.  Winners will be notified by e-mail on Monday.
And if you do win, please let us know how the performance was.

On a side note, I think I should be commended for not working any cannibal jokes into this post. Just know that it took great restraint.

John McCain’s Arts Policy, At Last

His campaign finally released a statement about government and the arts. Here it is, in its entirety:

John McCain believes that arts education can play a vital role fostering creativity and expression. He is a strong believer in empowering local school districts to establish priorities based on the needs of local schools and school districts. Schools receiving federal funds for education must be held accountable for providing a quality education in basic subjects critical to ensuring students are prepared to compete and succeed in the global economy. Where these local priorities allow, he believes investing in arts education can play a role in nurturing the creativity of expression so vital to the health of our cultural life and providing a means of creative expression for young people.

The statement was released last week to the Salt Lake Tribune. Julie Checkoway’s article, “McCain’s anticipated arts policy comes in at four sentences long,” is here. Lee Rosenbaum’s CultureGrrl blog has more: “I’d call that an education policy, not an arts policy.”

The Big Center Hires the Big Voice for a Walk-On

And the answer to Stephen’s question (see below) about who the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts would get to make their opening-day announcement is really quite simple.

Just get the Greatest Voice for Announcing Anything in the World.

James Earl Jones

– who promptly gave the dignitaries and million-dollar arts patrons assembled at the Belo Mansion a little sampler (Jacques’ Seven Ages of Man speech from As You Like It, some reminiscences of playing Of Mice and Men at SMU, Fences on Broadway and The Great White Hope on stage and film — funny, there was nothing about this guy, though). And then Jones didn’t even announce the one (the only) new fact. The official opening date of the DCPA. That was left for John Eagle, head of the opening ceremony committee.

October 12, 2009.

Memo to Mine Owner: Most of the Canaries Are Gasping

A quick roundup of news items about the economic meltdown and the arts:

• The Telegraph (London): Bad for British theater

• Hollywood Reporter: Bad for media companies

• Bloomberg: Bad for art auction houses

• Bloomberg: Bad for art galleries

• Bloomberg: Bad for the whole entire art market

• Washington Post: Bad for high fashion

• The New York Times: Bad for New York theaters

• Boston Globe: Bad for Masschusetts art groups

• Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Bad (maybe) for Seattle Art Museum

• Orlando Sentinel: Bad for Central Florida art groups

• The Independent (UK): Great for an online satiric series

• Bloomberg: Great for a French comic book

• Bloomberg: Great for movies — if you like Depression-Era Hollywood

The Chicago Tribune Sizes Up van Zweden

He’s coming in as a replacement for guest conductor Riccardo Chailly to perform Bruckner’s Fifth:

Little known outside the Netherlands until last year when he was named music director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the Juilliard-trained violinist turned conductor has been stirring up a remarkable degree of buzz in the symphonic world. And the buzz is only getting louder. . .

Question: What have been your initial impressions as music director of the Dallas Symphony? Are the conditions in place for you to achieve the level of musicmaking you hope to achieve?

Answer: Absolutely. I have already observed a big difference from the music we made the first time I conducted them and the music we are making now. The difference is in how they react to me. You know, making music is nothing more than developing a relationship [with the musicians] onstage. This relationship has already blossomed so beautifully in Dallas. To be honest, it is [succeeding] well beyond my expectations!

You can read the whole Q&A here.

Take a Piece of Tut Home

Part of any major museum exhibition is the array of collectibles tied to it in the gift shop. You can bet that the Kimbell is selling plenty of pretty Manet posters and Van Gogh mouse pads tied to “The Impressionists: Master Paintings from the Art Institute of Chicago.”

So it should come as no surprise that King Tut — the person whose own collection of stuff has generated “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs” at the Dallas Museum of Art — comes with plenty of trinkets for sale. The museum gift shop offers the usual array of calendars and coffee mugs, but whoever is in charge of merchandising the Boy King didn’t stop at just the traditional items.

My favorite so far is the $100 hookah for sale on the left just as you enter the shop from the end of the exhibit. Not sure how many of those will sell, but at least it is out of the ordinary.

The exhibit also has an online store if you want so grab that Tut T-shirt to wear ahead of your visit.

If any of you took in the show during opening weekend, drop us a comment on this post and let us know what you thought. And if you bought something on the way out, by all means, tell us about that, too.

Photo: The Official Store of the King Tut Exhibition

Serenity

I’ve often thought that few people could improve on Dallas Morning News photographer David Woo’s classic shots of the Museum of Modern Art Fort Worth. He quickly latched on to the reflecting pool, letting Tadao Ando’s design shimmer like hammered gold at night or emphasizing its perfect geographic order in the day. But now MAMFW has posted a shot of its own from a different angle. And it’s lovely, too.

How is it that Fort Worth has two of the most serene spots in North Texas — the Japanese Garden and the Modern Art Museum?

Arts on Campus: There, but Not There

Marjorie Garber, author of the superb Vested Interests:Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety as well as Patronizing the Arts,  writes in the Boston Globe:

This is an era of what could be called the “visual intellectual.” Students on college campuses and members of the general public flock to hear - and see - addresses by filmmakers, artists, and performers. Cultural attention, and cultural primacy, have shifted to encompass art installations, the moving image, technology, and performance. Phrases like “visual literacy,” “aural literacy,” “digital literacy,” and “media literacy” are increasingly common.

But although artists and performers are highly prized as visitors to colleges and universities, the kind of work they do has not reached a comparable importance in the curriculum.

Art and higher education might seem a natural fit in many ways, but they have a long and uneasy relationship. The arts are often still consigned to a secondary role within universities, sometimes viewed as not intrinsically intellectual, or not intrinsically academic. Even when a university invests significantly in the creative arts, and offers an array of courses in painting, sculpture, creative writing, and performance, many scholars and academic administrators remain unconvinced: Arts do not seem to lend themselves easily to the “tenurable” standards of other university subjects.