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"Great Performances" 40th Anniversary Celebration


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This was broadcast in my area last night I watched the first hour. Apart from Perlman and the klezmer troupe, mostly disappointing. I couldn't help wishing to see more of the artists in the old clips and less of what was actually happening on stage. Did anyone else see it? It should be repeated.

The program will launch this year's PBS Arts Fall Festival, a multi-platform event anchored by seven films that highlight artists and performances from around the country, with related online content.

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As enjoyable as the klezmer band was, it had little to do with classical music, which is what Perlman was supposed to represent. Dramatic theater got the shortest end of the stick: a song by...Josh Groban. I won't say more about the program because I'd have to violate my new if-you-can't-say-anything-nice resolution. (But the next time PBS tries to rope me in with the promise of something special, I'm not going to waste my time.)

The "festival" is predictably very low on "high" art, and there's no dance at all.

http://www.pbs.org/arts/pbs-arts-festival/2013-pbs-arts-fall-festival/

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This doesn't make up for the terrible lack, but PBS is filming, tomorrow in fact at the gorgeous Academy of Music, PA Ballet for broadcast next fall. Program is Diamonds, Wheeldon's After the Rain, and a pdd by Margot Sappington (IMHO a terrible, terrible choice); the concert is free (a good move on the part of PAB) and already "sold out."

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This was broadcast in my area last night I watched the first hour. Apart from Perlman and the klezmer troupe, mostly disappointing. I couldn't help wishing to see more of the artists in the old clips and less of what was actually happening on stage. Did anyone else see it?

My wife called me for the dance segment, which had Peter Martins talking about what a thrill it was to make A Fool For You and have Ray Charles himself participate. Andrew Veyette and a couple of NYCB women I couldn't identify on a little screen then danced to It Should Have Been Me.

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As enjoyable as the klezmer band was, it had little to do with classical music, which is what Perlman was supposed to represent. Dramatic theater got the shortest end of the stick: a song by...Josh Groban. I won't say more about the program because I'd have to violate my new if-you-can't-say-anything-nice resolution. (But the next time PBS tries to rope me in with the promise of something special, I'm not going to waste my time.)

The "festival" is predictably very low on "high" art, and there's no dance at all.

http://www.pbs.org/arts/pbs-arts-festival/2013-pbs-arts-fall-festival/

I had the same thought, volcanohunter. We should have seen Perlman do a classical piece. It would have been a refreshing change from most of the rest of the program. I also thought Audra McDonald blew it with her two songs. The first from "She Loves Me" was all right, the second went in one ear and out the other, and neither was ideal for such an occasion.

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My wife called me for the dance segment, which had Peter Martins talking about what a thrill it was to make A Fool For You and have Ray Charles himself participate. Andrew Veyette and a couple of NYCB women I couldn't identify on a little screen then danced to It Should Have Been Me.

Yep. I understand the limitations presented by the performance space, but it was still depressing to switch from clips of Farrell and Martins dancing like Olympian deities in "Chaconne" to.....that, although Veyette was charming and the bit was not-bad in itself.

I thought it odd that Martins didn't introduce the other dancers in the piece as well, it's not as if there were a dozen of them.

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This doesn't make up for the terrible lack, but PBS is filming, tomorrow in fact at the gorgeous Academy of Music, PA Ballet for broadcast next fall. Program is Diamonds, Wheeldon's After the Rain, and a pdd by Margot Sappington (IMHO a terrible, terrible choice); the concert is free (a good move on the part of PAB) and already "sold out."

This is good news -- it's been a long time since we've seen Pennsylvania Ballet on PBS nationally.

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This doesn't make up for the terrible lack, but PBS is filming, tomorrow in fact at the gorgeous Academy of Music, PA Ballet for broadcast next fall. Program is Diamonds, Wheeldon's After the Rain, and a pdd by Margot Sappington (IMHO a terrible, terrible choice); the concert is free (a good move on the part of PAB) and already "sold out."

This is good news -- it's been a long time since we've seen Pennsylvania Ballet on PBS nationally.

My impression has been that ballet performances are few and far between on PBS, and, when programs are scheduled, they are sometimes removed at the last minute in a particular region, to suit the instincts of the programming manager. PBS isn't the best place to expect to see dance, that is my feeling. The Classic Arts Showcase channel actually shows ballet and some modern dance, intermixed with opera, symphony performances and sections of classic films, over and again during its programming hours. But since it's a cable channel, many people don't have access.

One encouraging development at PBS has been the posting of archived performances, such as SFB's The Little Mermaid (in its entirety with additional footage of Neumeier talking about his ballet). But in their listing of full episodes, there are only 3 dance programs listed to watch, and there have obviously been many more over the years. I don't even know if the Pennsylvania Ballet show mentioned above will actually be shown in my area, or if it will appear at 3am on some random date. I've found out about an awful lot of great video footage by way of the Classica Arts Showcase, and not from PBS.

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For many years the assumption was that PBS had not negotiated re-broadcast or other kinds of distribution rights with the companies they filmed for Dance in America, so we didn't have legal access to those programs. I don't know if that's still the case with their programming -- now that the internet gives them the chance to post materials on their website (as they do with programs like Frontline and Nova) are they pro-actively including those kind of rights in the agreements they sign with the artists they feature?

Classic Arts Showcase does indeed run a wide variety of works that are commercially available, and with the inclusion of older television broadcast kinescopes, we've seen some really special older performances.

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For many years the assumption was that PBS had not negotiated re-broadcast or other kinds of distribution rights with the companies they filmed for Dance in America, so we didn't have legal access to those programs. I don't know if that's still the case with their programming -- now that the internet gives them the chance to post materials on their website (as they do with programs like Frontline and Nova) are they pro-actively including those kind of rights in the agreements they sign with the artists they feature?

Classic Arts Showcase does indeed run a wide variety of works that are commercially available, and with the inclusion of older television broadcast kinescopes, we've seen some really special older performances.

"...now that the internet gives them the chance to post materials on their website (as they do with programs like Frontline and Nova) are they pro-actively including those kind of rights in the agreements they sign with the artists they feature?"

That's a great question, Sandik, and I'm not certain how one can find out. Classic Arts apparently isn't able to post any broadcasts to their website, so they aren't dealing with Internet rights issues and royalties.

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Classic Arts apparently isn't able to post any broadcasts to their website, so they aren't dealing with Internet rights issues and royalties.

CAS needs to deal with rights and royalties just like anyone using someone else's intellectual property. They have negotiated agreements with the video companies whose work they broadcast (you see the credits at the beginning and end of each clip) -- the companies consider this to be a form of promotion or advertising, so are likely to be very generous with their material, but it is still under copyright and needs to be treated that way.

As far as live broadcast or complete works are concerned, I'm not sure it's a question of ability -- they were designed to use existing commercial materials, and do it in an excerpted, rotating manner. They describe these broadcasts as promotion for the arts in general and live events in particular, and purposefully mix genres all the time. It's a great service, but it's not a substitute for the work that PBS has done in the past to record dancework being made today, and distribute it widely. It's probably better to compare PBS to Kultur and other companies that create videoprograms -- PBS creates the programs and distributes them as well.

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