{ Monthly Archives }
All About Jazz: “I was writing this one in a hut up in Banff National Park…. And as I was writing it, I wanted to go out of the hut, take a break, so I went out — and there were these three elks outside the door of my hut…. So I was trapped for a little while and that’s how I finished the tune.”
Canada dot com: The Tory government is laying low on criticisms of a Toronto performance artist’s plans to offer the public an opportunity to sample human breast milk, although when they were not in power they frequently fumed over what they thought was inappropriate. “B.C. MP Jim Abbott fumed in 2001 over Mexican artist Israel Mora’s ejaculate, on display in a cooler at the Banff Centre. Today, Abbott is parliamentary secretary to Heritage Minister Bev Oda and a more reticent art critic.” [Note: the ejaculate was not actually on display, it was purported to be within a closed refrigerator. See this page.]
Calgary Herald: “The National Arts Centre Monday reported an operating deficit of $892,000 for fiscal year 2004-05, due in part to a $3.5-million loss on last year’s Alberta Scene festival…. Artists in Alberta, however, believe the NAC was getting value for the money spent.”
“When I was in Ottawa last April for the Alberta Scene,” says the Banff Centre’s John Murrell, co-creator of the new opera Filumena, the centrepiece of the festival, “I felt there was a real impact on Canadian audiences and international audiences (who were made) aware of the rich cultural and artistic traditions of this province, and the impact it has all over the world. I would call that money well spent. It seems a little ungrateful to say that because it had a large price tag, it was some kind of mistake.”
Update: the following day the Herald reported that Alberta Scene hadn’t lost money after all, and the original story was based on a reporter’s misinterpretation of the NAC annual report.
Edmonton Journal: “Despite their varied creative directions, all participants seem to agree that the Banff Centre has established something special in its annual jazz workshops, which have attracted a world-class faculty and an international set of students for more than 30 years now.”
