Oregon ArtsWatch

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News, notes and remembrances: A Tuesday compilation

By Barry Johnson
December 13, 2011
Culture, Featured

David Letterman recommends Typhoon, too.

We were saddened to hear that Mark Goldweber died of cancer late last week in Salt Lake City. He was an important part of the revival of ballet in Portland during a stint as ballet master at Oregon Ballet Theatre. After leaving here, he served in that capacity at the Joffrey Ballet (where he had danced) and most recently at Salt Lake City’s Ballet West. He was 53. Martha Ullman West is preparing an appreciation of Weber’s contribution to Oregon’s dance life for Oregon ArtsWatch, and we’ll be posting it soon.

The gift of PDX music. We liked the list of 15 “giftable” albums compiled by Culturephile’s Anne Adams. Heck, we even have a few of them. And though we ordinarily don’t like to feed the holiday beast, this is a responsible way to do it, in our humble opinion.

I need more screens! I have been reading dire warnings about the proliferation of “screens” of various types since the 1960s, though I never paid them  much mind.  Hey, “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” was on! Of course, in those days we didn’t have brain imaging the way we do now, and some neuroscientists are alarmed by the screen-reading mind at work: “As we become too impatient to read complicated syntax, I wonder out loud about the capacity for handling the complexity of issues that are out there in life, with all their semicolons.”  (John Barber, The Globe and Mail)

Thank you, Mr. Campbell. Thanks to Brett Campbell, we have a pretty good idea here at Oregon ArtsWatch about the dimensions of the city’s alt.classical movement, and now, thanks again to Mr. Campbell, so does the rest of the known universe (otherwise known as readers of the Wall St. Journal). Actually, Brett has just scratched the surface, and one of the ongoing threads of ArtsWatch will involve the evolution of art music(s) in the city. Stay tuned.

‘Angels’ in Portland. I’ll be posting this soon right here,  but for those of you thirsting for more chat about Portland Playhouse’s production of “Angels in America,” jump on over to OPB’s Arts & Life page for my take on the matter. Of course, if you wait, you’ll get more apparatus, explanation, humble apologies and the like.  But given our Twitter Brains (see above), I fully expect you to leave now, read the first seven words and have a muffin — because that’s exactly what I’d do.

Deficit at the Minnesota Orchestra. It wouldn’t be a news and notes column without some discouraging word or another on symphony orchestras in distress. We could have linked to depressing accounts from Detroit, Philadelphia or Dallas, but instead we’ll mention Minnesota, which just recorded a $2.9 million deficit, its largest in history. We don’t believe that deficits tell the full story of an arts organizations true health, but on the other hand…

Oregon ArtsWatch Archives