Cellist Gets Back The Cello That Took Bullets For Him
"They don't love the music, because they told me this is haram (forbidden). [They said] you work with the U.S.A … this is [like the] Army," recounted Tariq Abdul Razzac. The militants were armed, and as Razzac attempted to flee, they shot at him. His cello, strapped to his back, absorbed the shots. The bullets pierced through its hard case and passed through the cello — causing extreme damage and rendering it practically useless. … Read More
Could New EU Rules On Sharing Content Save The Arts’ Middle Classes?
“The reality is a lot of the profits go to a few super tech houses in Silicon Valley and the result is you lose entire segments of the cultural creation population,” says John Degen, executive director of The Writers’ Union of Canada and chair of the International Authors Forum. “You end up either with superstar authors, or a vast underclass wanting to be superstars and no middle class. It’s been completely hollowed out.” … Read More
Irish Arts Funding Up 10 Percent, To Highest In Ten Years
The figure falls short of an historic high of €83 million (£72.7 million) in 2007 but is being seen as a significant step towards Irish taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s 2017 commitment to doubling government support for the arts within seven years. … Read More
Small UK Music Venues Are Shutting Down. Is It Because Of Robots?
“Music has become very open source. The channels in which you discover new artists have changed drastically. We can’t have our culture curated by robots; it has to be people who know what they’re talking about. We need cultural wayfinders who are willing to take risks.” … Read More
Deep Disagreements Over Facts And How We Form Beliefs
One particularly pernicious form of disagreement arises when we not only disagree about individuals facts... but also disagree about how best to form beliefs about those facts, that is, about how to gather and assess evidence in proper ways. This is deep disagreement, and it’s the form that most societal disagreements take. Understanding these disagreements will not inspire optimism about our ability to find consensus. … Read More
Have We Screwed Up The Balance Between Idleness Work?
Like Montaigne, who played a diffident but competent role in politics—he was mayor of Bordeaux—most of us forge a rotten compromise between idleness and industry. What else can we do? We see the flourishing of life in the little moments, as we see the scale of its shirked responsibilities. To manage our ambivalence is necessary work. … Read More
What Its Like To Read 171 Books To Judge The Booker Prize
I thought it’d be tough. I thought it’d be hard work. But I also thought I’d be able to do it. I mean, I read quickly. But it was a huge ask. It did just swallow up my year. I got to a point where I was actually dreaming mash-ups of the books I was reading. I would wake up in the morning and go, “Did that happen?” … Read More
M.I.T. Makes A Billion-Dollar Bet On AI, Starting A New College
Massachusetts Institute of Technology is taking a particularly ambitious step, creating a new college backed by a planned investment of $1 billion. Two-thirds of the funds have already been raised, M.I.T. said, in announcing the initiative on Monday. The linchpin gift of $350 million came from Stephen A. Schwarzman, chief executive of the Blackstone Group, the big private equity firm. The college, called the M.I.T. Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing, will create 50 new faculty positions and many more fellowships for graduate students. … Read More
Music That Explores What Gentrification “Sounds” Like
With an ensemble of six vocalists and 18 instrumentalists, the 80-minute “Place” obliquely yet obsessively mulls gentrification; displacement; the powers and limitations of white male privilege; and the intersection of shifts in communities and families, including the birth of Mr. Hearne’s children and the breakup of his marriage. … Read More
The ABT Dancers Taking On Harvard Business School
Last year, Crossover Into Business program director and HBS professor Anita Elberse was developing a case study on ABT, and reached out to the company executive director Kara Medoff Barnett, an alumna of HBS. "Anita mentioned the Crossover Program as an experience that has been transformative for professional athletes," says Barnett. "We looked at each other and had the same idea: How about inviting the ABT dancers to sit next to the NBA players?" … Read More
In The Instagram Age, What’s Next For Photography?
Maybe photographers have been too worried about photography losing relevance. Indeed, it's highly relevant. "One could argue from this evidence that it is the medium of our time, not just defining our globally connected digital image culture, but propelling it. Even a decade ago, no one could have predicted the seismic shift that has occurred in our relationship with – and use of – the photographic image." … Read More
The Roald Dahl Museum Was Massively Flooded This Year, But It’s Reopening
Appropriately punny for a museum that celebrates the author of The BFG, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and James and the Giant Peach (not to mention Matilda), "Isabelle Reynolds, from the museum, said: 'We hope the closure hasn't put a dampener on things.'" … Read More
After Furious Debate, A Place Is Found In Paris For Jeff Koons Tulips
There was an uproar from critics who argued that the gesture was clumsy and opportunistic, if not cynical, as Mr. Koons didn’t have a direct connection to the terrorist attacks. “The general outcry was in part caused by a form of outdated anti-Americanism, but it was also a sincere, offended one,” said Guillaume Piens, the director of the Art Paris Art Fair. “Whenever artists touch on memory and victims, it’s hard to see an uninterested, mere artistic act only.” … Read More
How Children’s TV Has Become Globalized
The new children’s media look nothing like what we adults would have expected. They are exuberant, cheap, weird, and multicultural. YouTube’s content for young kids—what I think of as Toddler YouTube—is a mishmash, a bricolage, a trash fire, an explosion of creativity. It’s a largely unregulated, data-driven grab for toddlers’ attention, and, as we’ve seen with the rest of social media, its ramifications may be deeper and wider than you’d initially think. … Read More
Sometimes, Theatre Can Feel A Bit Too Topical (Even When It’s About 1977, Or 1897)
What it's like to go to the theatre and see a play about the Constitution right now: "The play’s concerns could hardly have felt more viscerally urgent. In the row behind me, a woman wept deep, grieving tears — a kind of crying so suffused with pain that we’re not used to hearing it in public, even in a darkened theater. But this is not an ordinary time." … 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]
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]
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]
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]
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]
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]
Judges Overturn Public Vote In The Guardian’s Not The Booker Prize
Democracy shamocracy, right? "Sweet Fruit, Sour Land by Rebecca Ley is the winner of the 2018 Not the Booker Prize. Our three judges have taken the brave decision to overrule the public vote and put their weight behind this dark dystopian novel in the place of Ariel Kahn’s optimistic and gentle Raising Sparks." … [Read More]
The ‘French Scorsese’ Is Trying His Hand At A Western
French director Jacques Audiard won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival for directing The Sisters Brothers. How did one of France's greatest filmmakers, who consistently discusses and urges more gender equality in film, wind up with a hypermasculine Western? … [Read More]
What’s The Behind-The-Scenes Story On The Da Vinci Painting Restoration And Its Cancelled Showing?
Jonathan Jones rounds up all of the scuttlebutt - and there's a lot. "A crucial piece of evidence that Leonardo painted Salvator Mundi also suggests that its restoration has been excessive and has muffled its power. Ironically, this seems to make the work both an original and, in my view, a kind of kitsch concoction." … [Read More]
Carol Hall, Who Wrote The Music And Lyrics For ‘The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas,’ Has Died At 82
This is how it all began: "Ms. Hall was enjoying moderate success as a singer and songwriter when, developing an idea first hatched during a dinner party conversation, she, Peter Masterson and Larry L. King created Best Little Whorehouse, a comedy based on an article Mr. King had written in 1974 for Playboy. It concerned the moralistic efforts to close down a real-life Texas brothel known as the Chicken Ranch (because some customers paid in chickens) that had operated for years." … [Read More]
It’s Very Serious To Stick Something To A Statue, And You Should Not Do It Ever, But These Googly Eyes Are Hilarious Anyway
The world came to knew Nathanael Greene as the Revolutionary War general whom Alexander Hamilton didn't want to serve as secretary, but now? Well, now he's the googly-eyed statue dude. (And the police of Savannah, Georgia, would like us all to know it's not funny. Not funny at all.) … [Read More]
The People Trying To Figure Out What’s True Now
Sarah Schulman's new book is about people trying to figure out whom to blame, and a state where corruption at the very top leeches into every relationship. Where does her protagonist find some reality? In AA meetings. "The sheer humanity of people being able to admit their flaws in a world in which no one will admit their flaws is illuminating." … [Read More]
Australians Are Making Incredible Films, But Sometimes Even Australians Don’t Get To See Them
Whose fault is that? Well ... "Many Australian film-makers are locked out of cinemas. Australian producers too often lack the resources to compete with the massive marketing budgets of US films, while Hollywood cinema distributors dominate our screens. Like stocks in supermarkets, the bigger the marketing spend, the greater the shelf space accorded at the local multiplex." … [Read More]
Helena Almeida, Portuguese Artist Who Bent The Boundaries Among Genres, Has Died At 84
Almeida had a signature technique of inserting herself into her art, whether that was video, photography, performance art or other media. "'I turn myself into a drawing,' she said by way of describing her art. 'My body as a drawing, myself as my own work.'" … [Read More]
As Oregon Shakespeare Festival Searches For An Artistic Director, Its Executive Director Also Announces Plans To Leave
Cynthia Rider, who has been with the festival since 2013, says the board just offered to renew her contract, and she declined, "adding that the near-simultaneous departure with Rauch will give the festival 'new eyes, with lots of momentum' for upcoming challenges, especially around financial loss from wildfire smoke." … [Read More]
Black And Asian Theatre Artists Embrace A New British Book Of Monologues
The book is designed to avoid stereotypes - and give actors a better chance at roles outside of the terrorist, gang member, or other confining (or lazily cast) roles. "This project is special, as we are often encouraged to pick a character close to ourself for audition. But it is hard to find pieces, so we’re always having to play something that isn’t true to us." … [Read More]