With Stephen Harper set to call an election this weekend, the pundits and campaigns are getting revved up. In light of all the recent cuts to federal arts funding, many in the arts and culture communities are hoping that the arts will become an election issue.

Tom Durrie, founder of the Save the York Theatre Task Force and former manager of the Pacific Baroque Orchestra, got a shock August 27 when he looked out his window and saw workmen entering the York Theatre, more recently known as the Raja Theatre, and removing pieces of its interior. “A truck pulled up and guys were going in and out with masks on and loading, carrying things out, and throwing them in the truck,” Durrie recalled in a phone conversation with the Straight.

Anger is mounting across the country among politicians and arts advocates over the federal government’s axing of $45 million in arts and culture funding.

Dancer James Gnam has been nominated for a Dance Centre Isadora Award for his performance in last November’s Elemental Brubeck. The winners of the annual will be announced September 13 at the Scotiabank Dance Centre’s open house.

Recent cuts by the federal government could jeopardize Canada’s high-profile involvement in an internationally recognized craft festival held in South Korea, the executive director of the Crafts Association of B.C. says.

Festival Vancouver devotees will have to invest in new memorabilia next year: after eight years, the annual summer event is changing its name. Come January 1, it will officially be known as MusicFest Vancouver.

In-person sales of tickets for the Vancouver International Fringe Festival, which runs September 3 to 13, began yesterday, and would-be ticket buyers are being given an incentive to book their seats ahead of time: this year’s organizers have decided not to hold back any tickets for sale at the door. Tickets cost $14 in advance, or $12 at the door.

Tickets and passes go on sale in person on Wednesday (August 20) for the 24th annual Vancouver International Fringe Festival, where over 500 performances by more than 68 groups will take place September 3 to 13.

The Vancouver East Cultural Centre’s executive director is defending the extensive renovations under way at the historic site. The 99-year-old building at Venables Street and Victoria Drive, which was originally the Grandview Methodist Church, was stripped of its interior, without a roof, and held up by scaffolding at press time.

Flutist Mark McGregor and pianist Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa have reason to celebrate. The debut CD by the pair, who perform as Tiresias, has been nominated in the outstanding classical recording category in this year’s Western Canadian Music Awards. Delicate Fires includes a number of works by the late Vancouver-based composer Barbara Pentland, as well as premiere recordings written especially for Tiresias by local composers Rodney Sharman, Jennifer Butler, and Jocelyn Morlock.

The Western Front has released the schedule for its fall 2008 season, which includes two new concert series, En Masse and Stand Alone, as well as a visit from accordionist and electroacoustic new-music pioneer Pauline Oliveros. En Masse will explore the ways musicians perform together, while Stand Alone will consist of solo performances. Oliveros, in her first Vancouver visit in 15 years, will perform November 28 at the Vancouver Art Gallery as part of FUSE.

Just days after news broke that the federal government is axing the $4.7-million PromArt program, which provides cultural travel grants through the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, comes word that yet another cultural grant program is getting the hook.

Despite the July 31 announcement of the creation of a National Maritime Centre Society, North Vancouver’s plan to build a National Maritime Centre for the Pacific and the Arctic (NMC) is still awaiting the federal stamp of approval that would secure the project’s future.

Ballet B.C.’s participation in the inaugural Ballet Expo Seoul, which runs August 15 to 23 at the Yong Theatre in Seoul, South Korea, is just one element in the dance company’s plan to increase its exposure in the Asia-Pacific region, according to executive director Susan Howard.

It’s enough to make you wonder if there’s something in the B.C. air: last week, three young singers from our shores scored big wins. On July 27, 21-year-old UBC School of Music student Simone Osborne was announced as a cowinner, with Pennsylvanian baritone Edward Parks, of the Marilyn Horne Foundation Vocal Competition at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California.