Word: conductor
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...subsequent action by Congress forbidding the endowment to promote "obscene" art. By snubbing the AIDS exhibit, Frohnmayer appeared to be signaling that the NEA would now shy away from controversial work. That led to a storm of criticism from the art world and a decision by conductor Leonard Bernstein to refuse a White House offer of a 1990 National Medal of Arts. Just hours before the show was to open last week, Frohnmayer reversed himself, agreeing to release the grant. The offending catalog, however, is being funded separately...
...popular image of the orchestra conductor is that of a grand seigneur: imperious, authoritarian and, more often than not, old. Concert music, goes the conventional wisdom, is something so emotionally and spiritually complex that no one who has not reached at least his 60th year can possibly plumb its depths. What Beethoven, who died at 56, Mozart, who died at 35, or Schubert, who died at 31, would have thought of this manifestly ridiculous proposition hardly needs asking...
...deny that the choices are sound ones. Abbado is a conductor of great range, equally at home, as Karajan was, in opera and symphonic music. His repertoire, however, is wider than Karajan's largely meat-and-potatoes Central European diet. "Musical history does not end with Puccini," Abbado declared after his election by the self-governing orchestra. Salonen, whose photogenic, blond good looks are sure to be an asset in image-conscious Los Angeles, is even more adventurous. "The Salonen appointment in Los Angeles indicates an orchestra possibly trying to change the image of what an orchestra might be about...
Coupled with this was the problem for young conductors trying to learn their repertory out of the spotlight. An overnight success could make a name, but at what cost? Michael Tilson Thomas, for example, sprang to fame in Boston by substituting for William Steinberg and then spent the next two decades dealing with the consequences of sudden celebrity. Still only 44, Thomas has matured into a fine conductor, and now leads the London Symphony Orchestra. Perhaps in recognition of the pitfalls of premature success, Soviet emigre Semyon Bychkov, 37, started out in Grand Rapids and then went to Buffalo before...
Since bureaucratic sadism is familiar to everyone everywhere, I was somewhat prepared for the denial of a simple request during the 600-mile, 18-hour train trip to Beijing. But I was not prepared for the sheer delight visible on the conductor's face when she said, "Meiyou, the rule does not permit turning on the lights before 7 p.m. and it's only 6:30. You will just have to wait 30 minutes...