Midlands Art Centre to unveil £15m Transformation

March 10th, 2010 - 
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It has been announced that the Midlands Arts Centre (MAC), the pioneering Birmingham arts centre, will open its doors to the public on Bank Holiday Saturday 1 May 2010, following a two year £15 million expansion and refurbishment programme.

Set in the 8.6 acre Cannon Hill Park in Birmingham, MAC was the brainchild of local philanthropist John English, the theatre writer and director, and his wife Alicia (Mollie) Randle. It was one of the first of a wave of arts centre developments in the 1960s, which sought to bring the arts out of conventional museums and theatres and into the heart of local communities.

Since its original conception as a centre for children and young people, MAC has grown to reach out to all ages and backgrounds in the community and is widely regarded as the most successful arts centre in the country, with more than half a million visitors a year drawn from across the whole of the West Midlands. It has played a creative role in the early stage of the careers of such artists as Mike Leigh, Tony Robinson, Adrian Lester, Imelda Staunton and Lesley Josephs. It is also home to SAMPAD; the national agency for South Asian Arts.

The original complex of buildings has now been dramatically transformed for a new generation. The developments include:

  • A major new gallery for the display of contemporary art – the largest in the West Midlands;
  • Refurbished theatre and cinema spaces;
  • Rehearsal studios;
  • Studio spaces for developing new work open to both professional and aspiring artists;
  • Expansive foyers and café spaces, designed to be flooded with daylight;
  • A newly landscaped terraced garden area with space for open air performances and relaxation;
  • Artists have been involved in every stage of the process culminating in a series of commissions for elements of the building itself including wall and floor decorations, carpet and sculptures.

Dorothy Wilson, Artistic Director and Chief Executive of MAC, has worked for the organisation for twenty years, inspiring and leading the community and championing the arts as a force for transforming lives. She said:

‘Our audiences are what make MAC unique in Birmingham and an inspiration to everyone who believes in the value of a cultural life. We are proud and excited that, just as Birmingham has reached the shortlist to become UK City of Culture, we are able to open our doors to our community again. We are truly grateful to our major investment partners, Birmingham City Council and Arts Council England for their unstinting support and to the many individuals, companies, Trusts and Foundations who have supported our Capital Appeal.’

Midlands Art Centre

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News Summary: 9th March 2010

March 9th, 2010 - 
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Libaries

‘The battle of Britain’s libraries’ is considered in The Guardian HERE, to include a look at the new £193m ‘super-library’ Library of Birmingham. Thanks to Dutch architects Mecanoo, the library will be a highly transparent glass building wrapped in delicate metal filigree, housing within its 33,500 sq m a few million books. It is a key component in the city’s bid to be the UK’s City of Culture in 2013 and should help fulfil the city council’s aim of putting Birmingham in the top 25 world cities by 2020, as ranked by the Mercer Quality of Living survey (it currently comes joint 56th, with Glasgow).

Film

Congratulations to Sandy Powelll who, as pointed out by The Guardian HERE, triumphed in the Best Costume Design category to now have won more Oscars than Marlon Brando, Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro – all of whom have just two to her three. The other British winner was Rob Beckett, who won his first Oscar for sound editing on The Hurt Locker, Kathryn Bigelow’s underdog victor. The low budget film scooped six awards including Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay and Best Director – making Bigelow the first woman to take directing honours in Oscar’s 82 year history. But does this represent a victory for women and a compelling or focussed view of what’s happening in cinema universally, or do the Academy Awards merely give us a vivid, muddled snapshot of the American mood? Discussion in The Guardian HERE, whilst The Times argues it represents ‘a big bang that changed Hollywood forever’ HERE.

Music

The world’s most influential classical music critic, Alex Ross, will deliver the annual Royal Philharmonic Society lecture to the assembled cognoscenti at the Wigmore Hall in London, entitled Inventing and Reinventing the Classical Concert, as he turns his gaze to the concert experience. The time has come, Ross says, to rethink the way that Brahms, Beethoven and Bruckner are presented.

Plenty of rethinking has already gone on in the UK; The Southbank Centre encourages cross-genre events, recently supporting Anna Meredith’s new concerto for beatboxer and orchestra; The Barbican puts orchestral scores to films — on Monday night a screening of Mikio Naruse’s 1933 silent film Nightly Dreams had a soundtrack by Nitin Sawhney; And the Roundhouse’s Reverb series in January, which introduced classical music to a pop venue, played to packed houses. Today’s Times asks what is the best way to reinvent the concert HERE.

Meanwhile, The Guardian looks at the effect of the No Applause Rule on the classical concert experience, arguing that the etiquette and the music sometimes work at cross-purposes. Clapping in the ‘wrong’ place comes from intuitively following instructions in the score, which explains why newcomers exhibit anxiety on the subject; it even appears that fear of incorrect applause can inhibit people from attending concerts altogether. You can read more on the question ‘If the underlying message of the protocol is, in essence: “Curb your enthusiasm. Don’t get too excited.” Should we be surprised that people aren’t as excited about classical music as they used to be? In The Guardian HERE.

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News Summary: 4th March 2010

March 4th, 2010 - 
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Broadcasting

In the name of equality, the Guardian has left BBC 6 Music for the day, in order to ask ‘Where’s the Save Asian Network campaign?’ And then to respond that the majority of the Asian Network audience comes from the Midlands (around 70%) listens on the AM frequency, not on digital radio; you’re unlikely to find them in media-friendly places such as Twitter – ‘The Asian Network’s inability to generate its own noise seems to stem from the fact that it doesn’t appeal to middle-class male tweeters with a love of Suede B-sides.’ More in The Guardian  HERE, with the idea that breaking up the BBC Asian Network will better serve diverse communities dismissed as absurd HERE.

The Times reports the fact that 3,000 complaints have been made to the BBC regarding 6 Music, and a senior BBC executive’s report that Mark Thompson:

‘… told us he is not concerned about the outcry, because it sends a message to politicians that even if you want to close a small, niche station there’s such a large outcry; imagine what would happen if you tried to close BBC One or Two.’ More in The Times HERE, whilst The Independent focuses on new controversy around the BBC giving free sporting event tickets to celebrities HERE.

ITV chairman, Archie Norman has said ITV gains nothing from the proposed BBC cutbacks:

‘I don’t see any benefit… The savings the BBC will make on cutting back on peripheral activities will be re-invested in programming. I can’t see how that will be of any benefit to ITV.’

Speaking of ITV’s own strategic review, which will be run by chief executive Adam Crozier for his arrival on 26 April with support from consultants LEK, he said what was needed was a ‘cold-eyed, realistic’ look at ITV’s position in the marketplace and that ‘today is very much day zero’. Norman, who has in the past said that a move to pay-TV services was not on the cards, seems to be viewing the idea more favourably of late, although maintaining that ITV currently has ‘no suitable product for a pay platform’. More in The Guardian HERE and more on ITV’s profits announcements in The Independent HERE.

City of Culture

Derry was last week one of four cities shortlisted for the title of UK City of Culture, 2013, good news which at the time seemed straight-forward enough; until Sinn Féin demanded that ‘UK’ be stripped from the title if the city wins. Maeve McLaughlin, the party’s leader on Derry city council, has said:

‘I have yet to be convinced this bid, as it currently stands, reflects the views of Irish nationalists and republicans… While we are a city of culture there has to be a recognition that we’re not part of the UK. We are not opposing the bid, but… There is a huge onus on the team that’s been put together to lead this bid to put in writing how they will address the issue of the tens of thousands of nationalists and republicans in this city and region who do not recognise themselves as part of the UK.’

Speaking yesterday at a reception to launch Derry’s bid in the House of Lords, the SDLP MP Mark Durkan said Sinn Féin protests over the title were putting the city’s application in peril:

‘This bid is an opportunity for Derry to promote itself as a city and to promote the wider region. It is about our civic ambition. It is about our cultural ambition. It is nothing to do with political aspiration – in which the people of this city have very clear views and differences about wanting to be part of a united Ireland or United Kingdom… Are we going to say that any other funding or opportunity that is set up on a UK basis we count ourselves out of? We should not be disabling ourselves from making the most of any opportunity to which we are as entitled as anyone else… And we can do that without compromising any of our political beliefs, any of our interests and identities that we hold very dearly at a political level.” More in The Guardian HERE.

Tech

Ed Richards, chief executive of Ofcom, has said that several media companies had raised concerns about the issue of net neutrality in the last few months and that Ofcom is scrutinising traffic management techniques, to publish its initial findings in the spring. Whilst arguing that traffic management policies must be clearly explained and transparent, Richards has indicated that the highly interventionist approach seen in the United States might not be appropriate for the UK and Europe, and that it was:

‘… even harder to justify blanket net neutrality rules when we consider the risks they could pose to potential collaborative and desirable investment in networks… In the US, limited competition, both at the network and the ISP level, means that the potential for consumer detriment through traffic management is greater… In Europe, as recent research for the FCC indicates, the mixed model — investment in infrastructure complemented by unbundling of the local loop — has delivered a more competitive market structure from the exchange back into the network.’ More in The Telegraph HERE.

Publishing

Mills and Boon’s novels were launched in India exactly two years ago and have doubled their sales in the past year. The publisher, Harlequin Mills & Boon, is far from the only beneficiary of a boom in book sales that is sweeping India; Dan Brown’s sequel to The Da Vinci Code, The Lost Symbol, has already sold 100,000 in hardback alone; Aravind Adiga’s Man Booker winner The White Tiger has sold more than 200,000 copies since its publication in 2008.

Driving the demand is the country’s continuing economic boom – 6.7% growth in 2009 despite the global crisis – and the tastes of the new Indian middle class. Manish Singh, Mills & Boon’s country manager for India has said:

‘It is a forward looking generation… The low hanging fruit for us is the single working woman who has money in her hands, the liberty to read, no responsibilities yet, no husband, children and so on.’

In the next decade, publishers forecast that India will become the biggest English language book-buying market in the world. New distribution networks and an increasing presence of chains of major bookstores are also fuelling the expansion. More in The Guardian HERE.

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We’re down to a City of Culture Fab Four…

February 24th, 2010 - 
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Culture Minister Margaret Hodge today announced the final four cities vying to become the UK’s first City of Culture in 2013 as:

  • Birmingham
  • Derry/Londonderry
  • Norwich
  • Sheffield

Phil Redmond, Chair of the Independent Advisory Panel, said:

“In deciding on the four cities recommended – Derry/Londonderry, Birmingham, Norwich, and Sheffield – the panel was influenced by the expected step change each city was asked to envisage, if they gained the title and subsequent media spotlight.

“It was a hard choice but also heartening that all bidders had recognised the power of culture to bring people together; to work collectively within existing resources for a common goal and bring into being networks that may not have existed before.”

You can read more in on the DCMS website HERE; in The Guardian HERE; and Independent HERE.

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Weekly Email: 10 September 2009

September 10th, 2009 - 
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Here is this week’s news:

Creative Industries

Digital Piracy Round-Up

A new grouping, the ‘Creative Coalition Campaign’, has been launched to support tougher measures on on-line piracy. Its members include the Musicians Union, the National Union of Journalists, the Premier League, the Professional Footballers Association, the Publishers Association, Equity and the Motion Picture Association full list HERE. They have issued a position statement in response to the Government’s proposals HERE Several members of the group wrote to The Times recently, highlighting that ‘as many as 800,000 people work in the creative sector, and with piracy depriving business of up to 20 per cent of their revenues every year, many workers will be at serious risk if action is not taken.’ Read the full letter HERE.

And new campaign, ‘Connected to British Film and TV’ aims to show people how the money they spend on cinema tickets, downloads and DVDs helps pay for new shows and films to be made has launched this week, supported by actors Nick Moran, Noel Clarke and Tamzin Outhwaite. More HERE.

Meanwhile, in an interview with The Times, members of the Featured Artists Coalition take a another view. Radiohead guitarist Ed O’Brien says ‘File sharing is like a sample, like taping your mate’s music… What’s going on is a huge paradigm shift’. Dave Rowntree, drummer with Blur and Labour parliamentary candidate says ‘the fact that file sharing goes on, and is as popular as it is, is an incredibly positive thing for the music industry.’ While Fran Healy, lead singer with Travis suggest that file sharers are ‘unsung word-of-mouthers who spread the word and create tipping point situations for a greedy record business that has got so fat it is unable to see its own footsoldiers’ More HERE.

In a speech at the Motion Picture Association of America in Washington Intellectual Property Minister David Lammy has argued that the industry needs to play its part by providing attractive alternatives to illegal films. He said: ‘Tackling supply isn’t enough. We need to tackle demand as well.’ More HERE.

The government’s dizzying statistic that over seven million Brits are involved in online piracy has been challenged in this blog HERE.

BBC

Jeremy has said that Mark Thompson’s successor as Director-General of the BBC should be paid no more than the Prime Minister. In an interview with The Times he said: ‘Under a Conservative government, we would expect a vacancy for the job to be advertised at a much more realistic salary – and we should look at the Prime Minister’s salary as a benchmark.’ More HERE.

The Chairman of the BBC Trust has published an open letter to the licence fee payers reinforcing the BBC’s commitment to its public purposes and announcing a thorough strategic review to ensure that the BBC is in the right shape to deliver these purposes in the digital future. More HERE We’re delighted the BBC has acknowledged that it needs to address issues surrounding its scope and purposes, and hope that the review will be thorough and objective.

Orange / T Mobile deal

Orange and T-Mobile have announced plans to merge, which would create the UK’s largest mobile phone company with 37 per cent market share. Consumer groups are calling on the OFT to investigate the proposed merger of T-Mobile and Orange announced this week, amid concerns that the creative of the UK’s largest mobile phone operator could damage competition. More HERE.

Google books

Google is to make concessions to European publishers and authors in an effort to stem a rising tide of anger over the landmark settlement. It has agreed to have two non-US representatives on the governing board of the registry that will administer the settlement, according to a letter sent to 16 European Union publisher’s representatives at the weekend. More HERE.

Meanwhile France is the latest European country to file objections to the deal. More HERE.

Mercury Music Prize

Congratulations to Speech Debelle on winning the Mercury Music Prize. She is the first woman to win in seven years. More HERE.

Film

Congratulations to the National Film and Television School (NFTS) which has been awarded a Skillset accreditation for its MA in Animation Direction following significant praise from industry assessors. More HERE.

Advertising

In the “no, really, we’re not kidding” section, we bring you the quite genuine news that the Lib Dems have launched a campaign against airbrushing in advertising, encouraging people to report adverts featuring heavily airbrushed images of women to advertising watchdogs. More HERE.

Meanwhile a report from the British Medical Association has called for a total ban on alcohol advertising, to tackle the ‘soaring cost of alcohol related harm’ more HERE.  We agree with the Advertising Association that this report is poorly drafted, shows a misunderstanding of the role of advertising, and we do not believe that a blanket ban on alcohol advertising is the right way to address this problem. More towards the bottom of this article HERE. The ASA ‘s latest survey, also published this week, shows that 99% of alcohol adverts are within the rules, which contrary to the BMA’s report, are not voluntary. More HERE.

Arts and Heritage

UK City of Culture

The final report of the working group for the UK City of Culture project was published this week. It recommends that the first year of UK City of Culture should be 2013, as this will ‘represent a symbolic handover from the end of the Cultural Oympiad and could form part of the Olympic Games legacy’ and lays out criteria for potential bid cities – full list of cities, which includes, er, ‘the countryside’, in the running HERE download the full report HERE.

Music

Ed Balls has launching a Year of Music HERE calling on schools and local authorities to make a concerted effort to get more young people into music, so that by 2011 over 2 million primary school pupils will have the opportunity to learn a musical instrument, DCSF say they have invested £330 million in music, both inside and outside of the classroom HERE which is more than three times as much as they say they have invested in sport, if you think about it.

Museums

The Natural History Museum will open a new Darwin Centre that invites visitors to chat to scientists, take part in interactive displays and even handle some of the exhibits. The new eight storey building opens next week and include a ‘climate change’ wall that shows the effects of global warming around the world and a number of multimedia experiences to allow visitors to see scientists on expedition of marvel at the latest research on curing malaria. More HERE. We look forward to the opening next week.

Open House

Open House is coming up next weekend – the 19th and 20th of September with a record number of buildings participating. Some buildings have a specific focus on art – 20 Dalston Lane is an empty shop, being used as a temporary arts space – over the weekend there will be conversations with Landscape Architect Jo Gibbons from J&L Gibbons, and artist and architect Liza Fior , while on the Greenwich Peninsula: Site there are permanent and temporary public art including Slice of Reality and Antony Gormley’s Quantum Cloud, More HERE.

Churches

The National Churches Trust (Ed’s a vice-president) is organising sponsored bike and walks between churches this weekend, to raise funds to maintain the fabric of the 40,000 churches in the UK – the cost for the next five years is estimated to be £1 billion. More HERE with suggested walks HERE, HERE and HERE.

Booker Prize

Congratulations to the authors and their publishers that have made the Booker Prize short list for this year: A S Byatt, The Children’s Book (Chatto), J M Coetzee Summertime (Harvill Secker), Adam Foulds The Quickening Maze (Cape), Hilary Mantel Wolf Hall (Fourth Estate), Simon Mawer The Glass Room (Little, Brown), Sarah Waters The Little Stranger (Virago). More HERE.

Arts

The BBC has appointed Will Gompertz to the newly-created Arts Editor role. He is currently Director of Tate Media at the Tate. More HERE. We are Will fans and think this is a great appointment.

ACE

Arts Council England have announced their new national leadership team as part of their ongoing restructure. Congratulations to those appointed, more HERE.

Libraries

Professional body CILIP highlights the pressing need to be clear on what constitutes a high-quality public library service. England has had not public library standards since 2008 and the Government do not want to re-introduce them more HERE. Our proposals for a Library Charter, as outlined HERE will set minimum standards for libraries.

Architecture

Shadow housing minister Grant Shapps has outlined a new policy initiative that aims to encourage local people to get more involved in the design of their neighbourhoods. More HERE.

And finally

Ed’s with the band, apparently, HERE when he is not being photographed by Rankin, HERE.

Where we’ve been and who we’ve seen

The Design Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, The Crafts Council, the Big Lottery Fund, Three.

Ed Vaizey

Shadow Arts Minister

Jeremy Hunt

Shadow Culture Secretary

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