The Cover Song Makes A Comeback
The status of the cover song has shape-shifted throughout pop-music history. Well into the 1950s, it barely even needed a name: It was just the routine way of doing business. During the rock era, covers became suspect as inauthentic, the stuff of the hack bar band, unless an artist “made the song their own.” With the rise of hip-hop, covers were displaced by sampling and remixes, but then samples themselves became more concealed and layered, for reasons of both art and copyright. In the 2000s and earlier this decade, the practice migrated to YouTube, where concert clips or home videos of one-off covers, rearrangements, and parodies might show off the skills and wit of amateurs and pros alike but still seldom troubled the charts—unless they also made it to soundtracks or TV ads, where … Read More
Why We Needed A New History Of The United States
Jill Lepore has surmised, is that too much historical writing—and perhaps too much nonfiction in general—proceeds without many of the qualities that readers recognize as essential to experience: “humor, and art, and passion, and love, and tenderness, and sex… and fear, and terror, and the sublime, and cruelty.” Things that she calls “organic to the period, and yet lost to us.” Lepore’s training as a historian, she’s said, tried to teach her that these things did not contain worthy explanations. In graduate school her interest in them “looked like a liability, and I took note.” … Read More
How Music Competitions Are Reinventing Themselves
Competitions, like the rest of the business, are redefining themselves. Rather than trying to produce the superstars of tomorrow, they’re increasingly focusing on the present: an end in themselves. Indeed, the line between the competition and other classical music organizations is increasingly blurred. … Read More
Even As Its Economy Was Melting Down, Greece Still Invested In The Arts. Why?
The principal belief is that supporting the arts and culture is not a luxury but an investment in human progress. It is the necessary scaffolding for building and sustaining civil society. It is the cornerstone for human growth and development. … Read More
We’re All About Feelings Now – How Literature Evolved Beyond Narratives
Western literature’s gradual progression from narratives that relate actions and events to stories that portray minds in all their meandering, many-layered, self-contradictory complexities. I’d often wondered, when reading older texts: Weren’t people back then interested in what characters thought and felt? … Read More
Report: Broadway Theatre Audience Is Getting Younger
The 21st publication is just out and reports the lowest age attendance since 2000, a significant bit of hope for Broadway’s long-term health. During the 2017–2018 season, the average age of Broadway theater-goers was 40.6, the lowest since 2000. For a second year in a row, there was a record total number of kids and teens under 18 attending a Broadway show. At 2.1 million, it represents the highest total ever (it was 1.65 million the season prior). Additionally, since the 2010-2011 season, Hispanic/Latino attendance has grown by 61%, or 430,000 admissions (from 710,000 to 1.14 million). … Read More
Rap Is A Russian Art, Just Like Ballet, Says Russia’s Culture Minister
Vladimir Medinsky told a room full of worthies at an Aspen/Davos-type gathering in Sochi, "Soon we'll be saying that rap is Russian art. Of course, it was born somewhere in America, but its flourishing occurred with us, of course." Just like ballet. Then Medinsky pronounced that the very first rapper was, in fact, early Soviet poet Vladimir Mayakovsky. … Read More
What Happens When The Great Thinking Of The World Is Reduced To Being Expressed In Tweets?
So, what happens when people stop writing letters? Or when books become less central to society—a tangential diversion or eccentricity—less important than movies, which are less important than the premium cable channels, which are less important than Netflix and Amazon Prime, which are less important than video games, all of which together are less important than social media? What happens when our writers and thinkers express themselves through Facebook, Snapchat, and Twitter instead of on the page? … Read More
The Art Balloon That Scandalized Australia’s Ruling Elite Is Back
"With a head like a turtle, a body like a giant cetacean and ten bulbous, hanging breasts, one thing is certain: It is hard to ignore the Skywhale. When the hot-air balloon debuted in May 2013, looming over Canberra for the Australian capital's centenary celebrations, critics said the 'floating sculpture' created by Patricia Piccinini did not represent the city. Some blushed at the scale of its udders and at its six-figure cost. ... Well, get ready, Australia. It's back." … Read More
New York Museums Rescind Use Of Saudi Money For Programs
The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum said on Thursday that they would not use Saudi money for programs on Middle Eastern art that had originally been supported by groups tied to the Saudi government. … Read More
Icelandic Culture Has Survived Since The Age Of The Vikings, But Can It Survive The Age Of Tourism And The Internet?
"Icelandic ... has changed so little since then on our small and isolated island, that we can still more or less read [the Sagas] as they were first written. But Iceland is not so isolated anymore." Novelist Ragnar Jónasson explains the factors that are making English more prevalent there than ever before ("Will Icelandic soon become the second language of Icelanders?"), and then looks at a couple of surprising sources of hope for the mother tongue. … Read More
On The Differences Between Being An Actor In The US And Europe
"Certainly American culture is different from European culture. So I had expected the life of a theatre artist in Paris or London to be more refined, somehow easier, and at the same time more gratifying on a creative level than mine here in the States. But it turns out that their struggles, passions, fiscal concerns, their training, their identity issues, and the sexism they face—in other words, much of their life experience, seems very similar to my own." … Read More
5,000-Year-Old Musical Instrument Found Near Rome
"The ceramic shell at first appeared to be one of a kind. One hypothesis was that it might have been a cheese strainer. Then, similarities were found with two other objects, found near Naples, that had been convincingly identified as sound boxes for musical instruments." One doctoral student determined that it was either a bowed lute or a lyre, and she made speculative reconstructions of each, using a copy of the ceramic shell and materials that were available circa 3,000 B.C. (includes sound clips) … Read More
Brahms: Rhythms That Fight (That’s The Secret)
Polyrhythms run through Brahms’s music like an obsessive-compulsive streak. You don’t have to be musically literate to know the bumpy feel of a cross-rhythm. Two-against-three can be a parent strolling hand in hand with a skipping child. Triplets on top of eighth notes are like a slow canter next to a trot: The two horses might move at the same speed, but you wouldn’t want them pulling a carriage together. … Read More
Anthea Bell, Who Translated Kafka And Astérix, Dead At 82
She was a widely admired translator of German literature in particular, introducing works by Sebald, Zweig, and Freud as well as Kafka to anglophone readers. But she's best known for her translations of children's books from German and French, especially the Asterix series of comics, whose puns she cleverly rendered in English. … Read More
Premium Classifieds
Director of Development
Music of the Baroque, one of Chicago's most respected chorus and orchestras, seeks a Director of Development to help deliver its ambitious plans up to and beyond its 50th anniversary in the 2020-21 … [Read More]
Getty Leadership Institute – Executive Education for Museum Leaders
The Getty Leadership Institute is now accepting applications for 2019 programs. GLI is celebrating 40 years of empowering museum leaders to advance their institutions and the field. GLI … [Read More]
President & CEO, Tennessee Performing Arts Center
The board of Tennessee Performing Arts Center Management Corporation seeks a visionary and entrepreneurial President & CEO to guide the board in making the most important strategic decisions about … [Read More]
Assistant Arts Professor of Dance History
New York University/ Tisch School of the Arts Department of Dance seeks to fill a full-time Assistant Arts Professor position in Dance History to begin in Fall 2019. This is a multiyear, non-tenure … [Read More]
Master’s in Arts Management in NYC – for Active Performing Artists
The New School's MA in Arts Management & Entrepreneurship is designed for active performing artists seeking the business skills, strategies & inspiration to drive new careers in arts … [Read More]
Director of Development, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center seeks an exceptional Director of Development, a key executive position, to join the organization at an exciting time of institutional accomplishment and … [Read More]
Spoleto Festival USA – Director of Finance / Chief Financial Officer
Spoleto Festival USA, internationally recognized as America’s premier performing arts festival, seeks a Director of Finance to oversee an approximately $8 million operating budget, $16 million … [Read More]
The First Pop-Up Books Weren’t For Kids — They Taught Adults Science
"From about 1450 to 1750, most pop-ups appeared in scientific books. Movable paper parts were once used to explain the movements of the moon, the five regular geometric solids, the connections between the eye and the brain, and more." … [Read More]
Cicely Berry, Legendary Voice Coach For Actors, Dead At 92
"[She] was the best-known voice coach of her generation, though the term vastly underrates what she did and her attitude towards it." In three books and 45 years at the Royal Shakespeare Company (along with extensive work elsewhere), she transformed the way that voice work for actors was taught, and even conceived. … [Read More]
The New American Songbook: The 30 Hits Of The Past 25 Years That We’ll Be Hearing For The Next 100
"Separating the most durable tunes from the millions of other would-be classics is no easy task. So we asked critics, musicians, and industry professionals to predict which [ones will last].Some of these songs our children will belt in sports arenas. Others our grandchildren will dance to at their weddings." … [Read More]
Walton Family Foundation Funds New Teaching Program To Increase Diversity In Museum Staff
The charitable foundation of the family that founded Walmart has given $5.4 million to Spelman College, a historically black institution in Atlanta, and the Atlanta University Center to create an art history and curatorial studies undergraduate program. … [Read More]
Ballet Culture Is Finally Changing, Because It Has To: Two New York Times Critics Reflect On #MeToo And The City Ballet Lawsuit
A pair of essays, by Gia Kourlas on how New York City Ballet's dancers are standing up for decency and respect rather than defending the behavior of their now-departed colleagues, and by Siobhan Burke, wondering why the union that's supposed to represent all the dancers is fighting for the two who were fired rather than the colleagues they demeaned in their texts. … [Read More]
Sotheby’s Didn’t Know About Banksy’s Hidden Shredder, But They Did Get Very Specific Instructions From Him
Two execs from the auction house talked to reporter Anny Shaw about the now-world-famous self-shredding painting. They insist that Sotheby's was not warned in advance — and Banksy himself issued a statement that said "no collusion" [sic]. But there were some suspicious stipulations for the sale. … [Read More]
Banksy Really Meant To Shred The Entire Painting, But The Shredder Jammed
"In [a] video posted on Tuesday entitled Shred the Love (the director's cut), Banksy shows himself constructing the shredding mechanism inside a frame. It then cuts to the auction room and the moment of partial destruction. At the end, the video notes: 'In rehearsals it worked every time ...' as it shows the piece going the whole way through the shredding machine." … [Read More]
Funding The Arts Through National Lotteries Is A Terrible Idea
"Since its introduction in the mid-1990s, the UK National Lottery has made a lot of poor people slightly poorer while equipping Arts Councils to enrich an arts sector that disproportionately serves the better-off. It is not hard to picture an old woman applying coin edge to scratch card, with no more chance of winning the jackpot than of stepping inside the gallery she has helped to build. Can we still claim that the arts are a 'good cause' when ill-spent money is increasingly used like this?" … [Read More]
Toronto Symphony Posts Surplus Of $2.3 Million (!)
"Although the TSO has been in the black for many years, the surplus for 2017-18 is significant. After many years of small, slow declines in ticket revenue, the organization posted a 17 per cent rise in ticket sales over the 2016-17 season. Subscription revenue has been steady, but revenue from single-ticket sales last season was up 26 per cent. This is a remarkable accomplishment, largely due to interim CEO Gary Hanson, a veteran orchestra manager." … [Read More]
With String Quartets In A Brewery, NC Classical Radio Station Courts New Listeners
"Organized by WDAV in Davidson, and held at a brewery in Charlotte, the quarterly Small Batch Concert Series has attracted standing-room-only crowds of more than 200 people for its four concerts to date" — a turnout "much bigger" than previous station events, says the general manager, who adds that at every concert he encounters people who didn't know that metro Charlotte even had a full-time classical radio station. … [Read More]