Friday, July 08, 2005 - The new state budget allocates $2.25 million to the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the largest amount a state agency has given to the performing arts group in recent history.

Business & Arts South Africa (BASA) will be hosting a series of fundraising seminars for artists and arts organisations around the country. There will be seminars hosted in centres in all 9 provinces over a two week period, starting in Durban (25th July), East London (26th July), Cape Town (27th July), Kimberley (28th July), Bloemfontein (29th July), Nelspruit (1st August), Polokwane (3rd August), Johannesburg (4th August, a mini seminar) and Mmbatho (5th August).

This is the 48th edition of Arts Management Newsletter, published in July 2005.

Anyone who has ever been to school can remember visiting museums as a child. Memories of being shepherded around quiet, cold rooms full of national treasures may be almost as strong as the frustration that everything was hidden behind glass cabinets.

Many British exhibitions of the past have been standoffish affairs, restricting contact between visitor and artefact as much as possible. But does this "look but do not touch" approach protect the objects of our past, or remove their cultural significance entirely?

This course is to be held in Mombasa, Kenya from 15 August to 04 November 2005. Organized by AFRICA 2009, a joint programme of the International Center for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, CRATerre-EAG, and African cultural heritage organizations, is aimed at improving conditions for the conservation of immovable cultural heritage in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The Southern African Theatre Initiative is a regional organisation formed by theatre practitioners who realised the need to come together and work as a unit for the development of theatre in Southern Africa. S.A.T.I. is a network that works as a central co-ordinating body for Theatre in SADC countries.

Museums matter. But who is arguing why they matter depends on the historic moment and the political perspective of the person or group addressed. As Chris Smith, former Secretary of State for Culture, pointed out in his recent keynote address to ALM London on the Future of London's Museums, the Victorian founders of most of our national and regional museums had clear notions of their purpose and importance.

Canadian museums have a growing presence on the internet. Although most museums feel the internet is a valuable tool to reach potential and actual visitors, not much is known in terms of what people are looking for from a museums web space.

Seychelles Minister for Local Government, Sport and Culture, Sylvette Pool, has launched a Cultural Policy for the Republic of Seychelles.

Unveiled on the 1st April, 2005 the new policy, comprises three principal documents...

The Hague / Bergen 3 June 2005: The European Union and Europa Nostra the pan-European federation for heritage today announced the winners of the European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage/Europa Nostra Awards 2004 at a European Awards Ceremony at the Håkonshallen in Bergen, Norway.

After the conference an informal European network of civil servants working in the field of national cultural education policy was set up.

In this issue we have a special focus on museum and heritage management. A lot of articles, surveys and conferences these days cover the question, if museums and heritage attractions are well prepared for the future, to think about the values, new audiences, membership benefits, education programmes and much more.

In June 2004, an appeal for a Europe founded on its culture was launched by the director of La Monnaie opera house in Brussels, supported by IETM, the European Writers Congress, Europa Nostra and EFAH. The appeal and list of signatories was presented to then EU president Romano Prodi, and stimulated a wide-ranging response from many European heads of state.

From April to November 2005 Audience and Market Development will present Leading Voices across Australia. The program brings some of the latest ideas and thinking about audience development and arts marketing to Australia's arts community in association with www.fuel4arts.com and the UK Arts Marketing Association.

This ArtsJournal Forum, funded by the Wallace Foundation (which also commissioned the RAND report), brings together 11 artists, arts administrators, advocates, researchers and critics to discuss the main contention of the RAND report: that a better case can be made for the arts by focussing on intrinsic effects.

Arts Extension Service (AES) at University of Massachusetts Amherst (USA) has new partners for the 26th Annual Summer Institute for Arts Management in June 20-22, 2005.

The City of Nantes, On The Move, IETM and Relais Culture Europe organize a colloquium in Nantes in collaboration with ERBAN on 23-24 June 2005, on the subject of Interactive Culture: Culture and Online Information

Two days of discussion will focus on the encounter between the cultural domain and digital culture and will question if the cultural operators and resource centers are lagging behind in the exploitation of new possibilities.

Within the Annual Conference 2005 of ENCATC, 60 students from all over Europe (and some from farther) will get together and will deal with this topic. On the weekend in the beginning of June, the students will meet approx. 250 teachers and professional from all over the world for an exchange and a process of mutual learning. The core of the students' meeting should be the exchange between students; exchange of experiences, of knowledge, of contacts, of projects and interests. The magic word for this weekend should be interaction. The students will not be recipients but participants; they take part and are involved in the process going on. The program with workshops and lectures will just give a frame that will be filled with the ideas and with the motivation of the participants. As the topic borders, boundaries, limits, is very wide spread, we do not expect to cover all aspects of it, we rather want to get closer to it with this, in a way experimental approach, and to become aware of the different aspects of it.