HubArts.com

Addison director ponders the economic moment

The Addison Gallery of American Art at Philips Academy in Andover is currently closed for a major renovation/expansion, due to reopen in 2010. But that doesn't mean Director Brian Allen has been resting easy. I just noticed a mass email from Allen, which he also posted to the Addison blog. In it he assesses the state of the Addison in light of the "challenging and indeed perilous economic conditions," and ultimately pronounces it relatively secure. "The Addison will weather this storm," he writes. But you can feel the concern that is almost any museum director's daily lot now, concern for donations drying up, concern for shrinking revenues from endowments, concern for finishing that expensive capital project...dangers everywhere. And in passing he reveals more than expected about how the museum biz works. It's required reading, and the full text is after the jump...

HubArts gets some love from Globe Magazine

Sunday the Globe Magazine included HubArts in its honor roll of “Sixty-four local websites that you have to click on now!" You should read the story right now. And welcome to Globe Mag readers visiting for the first time. Please note that the blogger is available for speaking engagements, children's birthday parties and Mexican tag-team wrestling.

Classic rock taking over Stuart Street Playhouse

Release arrived late Wednesday announcing that the Ultrasonic Rock Orchestra has set another run of "A Night At The Rock Opera" for the holidays, this year at the Stuart Street Playhouse. Details in a sec. The bigger news in the release was that the city's biggest cover band will be playing Saturday nights there beginning Jan. 17 and running through June. This suggests there is a larger audience for the 19-member URO's full-throated renditions of "Bohemian Rhapsody" and side two of "Abbey Road" than previously suspected. One also has to wonder what it says about the state of theater in the city at this crappy economic juncture. Anyway, the holiday performances are Dec. 26-27-28 at 7:30 and New Year's Eve at 10 p.m. The 2009 shows on Saturdays are set for 8 p.m. All seats are $39.50, and you can get them at 1-800-447-7400, at Telecharge, or the box office.

Turkeys are on at HubArts HQ

And so we eat...

Today's journalistic output

I have two in the Globe this morning: an interview with "Slumdog Millionaire" star Dev Patel (left, with Freida Pinto)  and a review of Friday's Video Games Live concert at the Wang.

WGBH to broadcast BSO's Elliott Carter premiere live

 James Levine, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and pianist Daniel Barenboim will premiere Elliott Carter's "Interventions" on Dec. 5 in an afternoon (1-4 p.m.) program at Symphony Hall. And, wonder of wonders, WGBH will broadcast the concert live on 89.7 FM and online at wgbh.org/classical/. The announcement:

On Friday, December 5, WGBH Radio presents the world premiere--and only broadcast--of renowned composer Elliott Carter's Interventions, live from Symphony Hall in Boston. Carter, considered one of the world's greatest living composers, has extraordinarily composed Interventions in celebration of his own 100th birthday on December 11, 2008. The broadcast can be heard from 1-4pm live in New England on WGBH 89.7 and worldwide on All-Classical WGBH, online at wgbh.org/classical.

Carter will appear at Symphony Hall for the historic concert. "To have a composer taking a bow at his own centennial concert is truly an event, but for Elliott Carter to write a piece for the occasion, is a gesture unprecedented in the history of music," says WGBH Radio classical producer Brian Bell.

BSO Music director James Levine leads the BSO with pianist Daniel Barenboim in Carter's composition and a program that also includes Barenboim and Levine as partners in Schubert's Fantasie in F minor for piano four-hands, Beethoven's forceful Piano Concerto No. 3, and Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.

Listeners are invited to tune in from 1-4pm on select Friday afternoons as WGBH Radio broadcasts the Boston Symphony Orchestra live from Symphony Hall with host Ron Della Chiesa. Details about upcoming broadcasts can be found at wgbh.org/classical.

Photo: (c)Meredith_Heuer_2000 from the Carter Centenary site.

Huntington presents Berklee in the South End

The Huntington Theatre Company announced more of its “Upstairs at the Calderwood” winter cabaret series in the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts. We already knew about Lea DeLaria Dec. 11-13. Also on the schedule now is Berklee @ Upstairs at the Calderwood, beginning Jan. 22. Shows at at 8 and 10 p.m., and the press release seems to promise adult beverages will be available.

Tix are $15, with $5 off for Huntington subscribers and students. Available online at www.huntingtontheatre.org, by phone at 617 266-0800, in person at the B.U. Theatre Box Office or the Calderwood Pavilion Box Office. Here's the schedule:

• Amy & The Electric, Jan. 22: "Amy Crawford’s melodic piano and cool vocals recall the sounds of Peggy Lee, Sheryl Crow, and Norah Jones."
• Sol Melodiq, Jan. 23: "A Boston-based ensemble of six that combine elements of jazz, hip-hop, soul, funk, and gospel to create an offbeat sound that uplifts the soul."
• Latin Jazz All Stars, Jan. 24: “Down Beat’s” Best College Jazz Band of 2008. A six-member ensemble that performs a salsa-infused blend of musical styles from around the globe.
• Florencia Gonzalez, Jan. 29: "A composer, arranger and saxophonist, Florencia Gonzalez is inspired by the rhythms of her native Uruguay to create a visionary style of jazz-infused bossa nova that recalls Leonard Bernstein’s score for 'West Side Story.'"
• Manami Morita, Jan. 30: "A trained classical pianist from Japan, Manami Morita’s instrumental tunes are a collision of classical melodies and American jazz backbeats."
• Andrei Matorin, Jan. 31: "Jazz violinist Andrei Matorin’s one-of-a-kind original melodies come to life amid the up-tempo syncopations of the jazz ensemble that accompanies him. "

"Harvard Beats Yale 29-29" at the Brattle

In the Globe today, I have an interview with Harvard alum Kevin Rafferty, director of "Harvard Beats Yale 29-29," a new documentary about 1968's epic clash, now showing at the Brattle. This weekend is the 40th anniversary of the event, and Harvard and Yale play in Allston tomorrow. Many players from The Game, along with Yalie Garry Trudeau, will be on hand for a special screening and Q&A tonight.

Despite one player who was in SDS and another who'd just returned from fighting in Khe Sanh, The Game provided a moment of joy, at least for Harvard players and fans, in the middle of that most tumultuous year:

Holy crap. Out Of Town News to close?

As if my career path over the last few years hasn't made it clear just how screwed the ink-on-paper industry is, now comes word that the iconic Out of Town News kiosk in the middle of Harvard Square is going to close because of a "major downturn" in sales. My dad's a Cambridge native, and for six months in high school he was one of the kids making change for the steady stream of customers who passed through for newspapers and magazines from around the world.

Dad's a social worker, and he emailed this anecdote: "At one point I had a French patient, from Grenoble, while I was at MGH - he'd fought in the Maquis - the French underground during WWll - so his English was good  but, as a favor to me - we had our sessions in French. I'd also pick up newspapers for him at that newsstand - and Gaulois cigarettes in the Square as well."

Out Of Town News was second only to Harvard in securing the Square's reputation as an international crossroads of learning and weirdness. You could get anything there, and it was a great relief to many that the newsstand survived the various "improvements" to the Square over the years. It maintained an eclectic clientele even as most of the Square's once-eccentric businesses gave way to the toxic blandness of chain retailing. Now it will probably turn into a f*ing Starbucks. This is heinous news. At least Charlie's Kitchen still serves a cheap martini.

Thursday update: The Globe put the story on P. 1 today.

Photograph courtesy Philip Greenspun

Don't miss "Slumdog Millionaire"

On the front of  the Globe Movies section today, I have an interview with Danny Boyle, director of "Trainspotting" and "28 Days Later," whose new movie, opening later this month, is "Slumdog Millionaire." It's a Dickensian epic, set amid the poverty and glitz of present-day Mumbai, hilarious and scary and sad and romantic. It's the rare film that includes torture, outhouse diving, the Taj Mahal and "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire." Great fun, and make sure you stay for the Bollywood dance sequence under the closing credits! I also talked with star Dev Patel for a story to run closer to next week's Boston opening.

UPDATE: Apparently the box office agrees with me.