Does anyone else notice that conductors seem to be a bit more, shall we say, “artistically tempered” than usual? A few weeks ago, Ricardo Muti made headlines when he walked away from a gig for the Queen of England because he reportedly took issue with her programming suggestions and now the Boston Globe reports that conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky ditched a concert series with the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) because he didn’t get equal billing with soloist, Lynn Harrell. Come on people; get a tighter grip on reality…
Year: 2008
Website Update
I spent a portion of the weekend updating my converting my consulting website from a hand coded html platform over to the same blogging platform I use for blogging. Although I required some detailed coding the long-term benefits are many, including simplified updating expanded offerings via the WordPress platform. In addition to the new platform is an updated graphic design and even though I still have some material to update, I do have information about my Area-51 project from this summer available so if you’ve been anxious to learn more about where I was and what I was doing, you’re in luck…
“Culture Palaces For Air-Kiss Orgies Among The Superrich”
Or so goes the vivid imagery from Matt Smith’s 11/18/2008 article in the San Francisco Weekly about what he categorizes as excessive compensation for individuals like Michael Tilson Thomas who he describes as the “baton-waving tycoon at the head of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.” Smith doesn’t hold back as he rails against what he sees as organizations that receive public funds but “consistently failed in their mission”… Barbed rhetoric aside, …
Executive, Regulate Thyself (Before Government Does It For You)
An article by Wyatt Buchanan in the 11/13/2008 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle reported on legislation from San Francisco Supervisor, Jake McGoldrick, on “limiting nonprofit executive salaries and benefits for executives to six times the total compensation of their lowest-paid full-time employee.” The Chronicle’s article and the current economy make this a very topical subject…
SMS SOS
Over the past few months I’ve received a number of reader requests asking for some sort of SMS and/or IM alert service notifying them of new posts. After searching around I have yet to find a suitable service; consequently, I’m going to turn to the one resource that is better than Google: asking readers. Here’s a list of required features needed for a suitable solution…