Blog Top Reads
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Click here for quick Google search on the term “CBC Radio 2″
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Below we feature the “Best of the Blog” from both the blog on this site and the original blog that started it all.
OPINION
• CBC: Retrench to Your Original Mandate: Ken Regan, manager of CKUA, tells the harrowing tale of a much-loved station in Edmonton sold off and then rebuilt again as a public broadcaster: a lesson for current CBC management.
• Margaret Atwood: To Be Creative is, in fact, Canadian
EXCERPT “Mr. Harper’s idea of an ordinary person is that of an envious hater without a scrap of artistic talent or creativity or curiosity, and no appreciation for anything that’s attractive or beautiful. My idea of an ordinary person is quite different. Human beings are creative by nature. For millenniums we have been putting our creativity into our cultures – cultures with unique languages, architecture, religious ceremonies, dances, music, furnishings, textiles, clothing and special cuisines. “Ordinary people” pack into the cheap seats at concerts and fill theatres where operas are brought to them live. The total attendance for “the arts” in Canada in fact exceeds that for sports events. “The arts” are not a “niche interest.” They are part of being human.”
• Toronto Star readers oppose CBC and arts cuts. Make this an election issue: “StatsCan reports that, with $6.8 billion in funding from all levels of government, the arts sector contributes $26 billion to the Canadian economy and employs 740,000 workers. That is more than the agricultural, forestry, fishing, gas, utilities, oil or mining sectors (all of which also receive government subsidies). Cuts to the arts will harm the economy.”
PUBLIC SPEECHES
Bob Anderson’s “An Athenian CBC” speech warns that we have a choice between the path of the Athenians or the path of the Visigoths. Essential reading.
excerpt
To be an Athenian or a Visigoth is to organize your life around a set of values. To be an Athenian is to hold knowledge and, especially the quest for knowledge in high esteem. To contemplate, to reason, to experiment, to question – these are, to an Athenian, the most exalted activities a person can perform. To a Visigoth, the quest for knowledge is useless unless it can help you to earn money or to gain power over other people.
OPEN LETTERS
Alain Trudel, Principal Conductor of the CBC Radio Orchestra.
Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor
Music director designate, Rotterdams Philharmonisch Orkest
Directeur artistique, Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal
Principal guest conductor designate, London Philharmonic Orchestra
Paul Ohannesian, artist and architect
George Zukerman, musician, O.C., O.B.C.
Richard Kurth, Dean, School of Music, University of British Columbia
- speech to the April 20 rally, Chan Centre, Vancouver
NEWSPAPER ARTICLES
Russell Smith, journalist
Janet Danielson, composer
Howard Knopf, lawyer
- The Hill Times, Ottawa, April 21, 2008
Christopher Butterfield, composer
- guest article, Victoria Times-Colonist, April 7, 2008
James Rolfe, composer, President of the Canadian League of Composers (CLC)
- Toronto Star, April 21, 2008
TOP READS (information)
El Sistema in Venezuela pulls kids out of violence and poverty through the learning of classical music. Note that the conductor Maestro Abreu, who began El sistema in Venezuela 30 years ago, is the latest winner of the Glenn Gould Prize. So while we give prizes to visionaries who understand the lasting power of participating in live orchestral music, our national broadcaster shuts down our National Radio Orchestra.