A couple of weeks ago, while on vacation, I had the pleasure of attending the San Francisco Symphony performance of Psycho with live score! I always enjoy seeing orchestras in other cities perform, and I also enjoy the movie-at-the-concert-hall format, so it made for a great evening out. And, it was great to see scalpers on the sidewalk hawking symphony tickets before the show; not that scalpers are desirable, but whenever symphony tickets are in demand enough to warrant the "secondary market", it warms my heart a little.

So waaaaay back in May 2008 this blog started out featuring posts by our then-publicist Melayne writing from France. Bill Eddins was conducting Gershwin's Porgy & Bess and Melayne was tasked with communicating the trials and tribulations of the opening back to us at home.

I first learned about Alec Baldwin's involvement with the New York Philharmonic through this article in the NY Times back in December. High-profile support of arts groups is always welcome, and it's good to see he's done more than just endorse them - he's gotten involved. Thanks to the blog "Life's A Pitch" I found a video of his appearance on Letterman, where he talks about it. They even discuss the difference between a Symphony Orchestra and a Philharmonic Orchestra! The segment about the NY Phil starts at about 6:30 in.

Last week the controversies over government funding of arts and cultural events once again came to a head as the Marquee Tourism Events Program recipients were announced. I have to say, I feel slightly sorry (only slightly, though) for the politicians and civil servants administering this program, as it seems rather ill-conceived from the start. Rather than funding as many festivals and events as possible, or alternately having a very focused mandate, it must choose winners and losers from a wide variety of applicants. More so than other grant programs, applicants are winners and losers in a big way - we're talking about individual grants in the 6 and 7 figures, or in other words, grants that would make up more than 10% of an organization's yearly budget. Really, it's a no-win situation. Even the "winners" of the grants can't count on the funding continuing in future years, a supremely frustrating situation for non-profits. From what I understand, this program was considered "stimulus" and may be discontinued now that the economy is recovering.

 2010 marks Chopin's 200th birthday, and there are a number of events worldwide celebrating the occasion. In Edmonton the Polish Culture Society is presenting or sponsoring a number of events, and I noticed an interesting pairing of performers for events on Sunday and Monday.