It’s a wonderful little item on the World Service about the man who drew the illustrations for Alex Comfort’s unbelievably illuminating Joy of Sex.

The book was a breakthrough for many young couples in the particularly bleak British 1970s and I can call to mind the drawings without having to shut my eyes.

But hearing how they were done has slightly dented the fantasy. I’d rather go back to my innocent preconception.

This is, by the way, currently the most watched item on the BBC News site.

Barrett Wissmann, disgraced owner of the talent agency IMG Artists, was forced to step down from his front-office role after he copped a state prosecutor’s plea to securities fraud involving the state pension fund in upstate New York.

But you can’t keep a fixer down. Six months ago, Barrett secured a Russian investor to help save the classical business. This week, he’s declared he’s coming back as co-chairman after retiring his frontman Charles Hamlen and sharing the company 50-50 with his Russian saviour, Alexander Shustorovich.

Two questions arise:

1 Will the International Arts Managers Association (IAMA) welcome Barrett back with a bouquet of roses, having previously insisted on his retirement?

2 How long will the happy couple enjoy their 50-50 split? About as long, I guess, as the first boardoom disagreement, after which things will either go one way or the other with stains on the carpet and the loser on the street.

Oh, and one further question. I hear Alex – a nice enough chap, by all accounts – is taking a leading role in IMG’s brand-new Moscow office. Was it, I wonder, he who fixed it with the Ministry of Culture for IMG Artist Vladimir Jurowski to ride in as rescuer of the Svetlanov State Symphony Orchestra?

Any answers? Here’s the IMG Artists statement.

 

wissman gheorgiu

 

 

(The diva on his right is Angela Georghiu. She seems to enjoy Barrett’s company).

Lisa Simeone felt strongly about the financial crisis and sat down in Wall Street as part of the Occupation protest.

Next thing she knew the US Right were screaming for her head and a gutless public radio network duly delivered it.

She no longer hosts The World of Opera or Sound Print on NPR network radio.

Just like that. So far as I can tell, Lisa was exercising her democratic right, pure and simple. She wasn’t even promoting a new book, like Naomi Wolff. Yet that was enough to get her the sack, summarily and without right of appeal.

I cannot imagine the BBC being so chicken to dismiss a presenter on a one-sided wave of public acrimony when no crime had been committed. And where were the left-wing voices supporting Lisa, balancing the debate, and calling for her to keep her job?

Has it all gone totally lop-sided? Someone please enlighten me.

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UPDATE: Steve Bass, President & CEO Oregon Public Broadcasting, has written in to clarify that Lisa Simeone was not fired as host of World of Opera. ‘She is still hosting the program, which is produced by WDAV, a classical public radio station in North Carolina. Rather than being distributed by NPR, it is now distributed directly by them to a few dozen stations that carry the program.’  While I’m pleased to learn she has been kept on by her host station, it does not alter the deplorable decision of NPR to drop her shows for an overtly political reason. It’s a free speech issue. Agree, Mr Bass?

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2nd UPDATE: Ms Simeone has confirmed to the Baltimore Sun that she was fired from Sound Print for taking part in the demo. She continues with The World of Opera, though to fewer stations. ‘A solution is being sought,’ say station execs.

 

Dozens of artists have written in, denouncing the continued practice at Fanfare magazine of pedding advertising space in exchange for a favourable review.

Fanfare is not the only classical outlet to practise such bribery, though others are perhaps less brash.

What perplexes me – and I have been discussing this with several artists – is why, knowing a rave review to be valueless, many artists, labels and managements still post it on their websites.

If Fanfare is fraudulent, don’t quote it. Otherwise you become party to the fraud.

Agree?

You can’t keep these Seoul bands out of the news.

First, the excellent Seoul Philharmonic won a 10-CD deal with Deutsche Grammophon and made a triumphant European summer tour with music director Myung Whun Chung.

Then the less celebrated KBS Symphony Orchestra took a leaf from Russia’s Svetlanov ensemble by rising up against their music director, Hahm Shinik, in a show of anti-maestro t-shirts at rehearsal.

Barely had these excitements settled down than I received word from Jehi Bahk, former concertmaster of the Seoul Philharmonic,

that his Philharmonia Corea has been chosen to play in the “Festival Internazionale di Musica e Arte Sacra” in November 2012. They will be the first Korean orchestra (and only the second from Asia) to play at the Vatican, perhaps before the Pope himself.

Jehi’s orchestra is unusual in that it is the first musicians’ cooperative in Korea. He tell me: ‘ I’m convinced that an orchestra can only be truly a great orchestra if its musicians can make music in an environment of artistic freedom. To create such an environment … I’m trying to build up an orchestra which is self governed (by its members) – for the first time in South Korea.’

All this, without either political or massive corporate funding. Watch that band.

It has earned them two years’ worth of headlines and high sales but the game is over for Rammstein, the hardcore German band. A track titled  “Ich tu dir weh” (I wanna hurt you) from the Love is For All album, whose promo video featured real-life porn stars, has been taken off the protection Index for young people by a court in Cologne. Apparently, sadism is fine in pop music so long as it fits within a stable, loving relationship, or some such free-speech legal eyewash.

Rammstein won’t mind. They’ll feature sheep slaughter on their next release. And Universal will be laughing all the way to the bank. It’s the public that are being taken for fools. There’s a good wiki article on the background.