Theater
The Scheherazade Initiative Brings Together World-Renowned Musicians and Charity: Music for Life, UN Benefit Concert for Violence Against Women, Elmira Darvarova, George Mathew, NY Philharmonic
'Shift: A Festival of American Orchestras' Announced in DC by The Kennedy Center and Washington Performing Arts: Reimagining of New York's 'Spring for Music' Fest
A reimagining of the “Spring for Music” festival has been announced by The Kennedy Center and Washington Performing Arts. The new festival, which will take place in Washington, D.C., will be called “Shift: A Festival of American Orchestras,” and will showcase ensembles from around the country in performance and community events.The new festival is initially scheduled for a three-year run starting in spring 2017. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded a $900,000 grant for the collaboration, of which $700,000 will be leveraged as matching funds for new gifts to support the program. Each participating orchestra will have a community outreach component, and the festival hopes to focus on not only performances and community events, but also symposia and workshops.“Shift” hopes to fill the void left by “Spring for Music,” a festival that ran in New York from 2010-14 at Carnegie Hall. Though critics and musicians praised the festival for its innovative programing, ticket sales were low and funding stopped after the initial grants from the Mellon Foundation ran out. Composer Harry Gregson-Williams Accuses Director Michael Mann of Scrapping Score for New Flick 'Blackhat'
Composer Harry Gregson-Williams of the new thriller flick "Blackhat" has accused director Michael Mann of “slicing and dicing” his score into something barely recognizable.Gregson-Williams wrote a brazen Facebook post in which he describes attending the film’s premiere and discovering that the score in the final version of the movie was not similar at all to the music he composed."I would like it to be known for what it's worth that the 'score' for Blackhat may be credited to me but contains almost none of my compositions," Gregson-Williams wrote. The post continued to describe the score as “quasi-emotional (synth) string pieces that I’d never heard in my life before.”There is also some speculation over who wrote the music that is currently in the thriller, which stars Chris Hemsworth."I knew of at least one other composer, a good one at that (!), that had put in months of work on this movie, just as I had, but this appeared to me to be in addition to both our contributions," he continued. "I can say nothing for certain except that I was not the author of most of what is now in the movie.”
