Mass Exodus? Why Nearly Half Of Miami’s Art Museums Don’t Have Directors
“Four museums in Miami are currently searching for new directors. In a city that has transformed itself into one of the top destinations for contemporary art in the US over the past decade and boasts perhaps ten significant art institutions, nearly half are now leaderless.”
Simon Rattle Appointed Music Director Of London Symphony Orchestra
“The conductor will take up the appointment in September 2017, following in the footsteps of principal conductors including André Previn, Michael Tilson Thomas, Sir Colin Davis and the current incumbent, Valery Gergiev, who is heading to the Munich Philharmonic.”
Here’s What It’s Like To Run NY City Ballet
“I think the thing that’s changed the most over the years is that it just becomes more and more and more difficult to sustain organizations and to sustain the art itself. The funding climate has changed over the years: it’s much more difficult and much more competitive. And the nature of the audience has changed as well. There is just so much more competition for people’s time especially with what’s available online, in new media, and on demand.”
Are These The Five Best Bookstores In America?
“Before the winner is announced in early April, each of the five finalists will submit a portfolio to impress the judges. The reward — publicity in Publishers Weekly and at the Book Expo convention in May — is certainly valuable, but this is a distinctly cordial competition.”
The Conflicting Values Of Self-Criticism
“We may not be able to imagine a life in which we don’t spend a large amount of our time criticising ourselves and others; but we should keep in mind the self-love that is always in play. Self-criticism can be our most unpleasant – our most sadomasochistic – way of loving ourselves.”
Here’s A Provocative Essay About Reasons For Decline Of Classical Music
“To gain a proper and complete understanding of what we call “classical” music is to appreciate that it was all written within the context of societies which were predominantly Christian in nature, and where celebrations of traditional national attributes were not seen as old-fashioned or backward-looking as they often are today.”
Why The Internet Isn’t Going To Solve Our Problems
“Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.”
In St. Paul: How A New Hall Redefines An Orchestra
“It’s the sound equivalent of what happens when curators at museums do that very careful cleaning process of old masters’ paintings and the colors become more vibrant and you can see all sorts of detail.”
Have We Just Found The Next Terrific Woman Conductor?
Mark Swed: “Word was out. The hall sold out. Presenters from Chicago, New York and elsewhere came to check her out. Managers who didn’t were simply not paying attention. The debut was a preview. Mirga mania can now officially begin.” (What’s more, “[she] was the third exceptional woman to conduct the L.A. Phil in a week.”)
ISIS And Its Sophisticated Cinema Of Terror
“The cinematography is as crisp and chilling as a horror movie. Men in orange jumpsuits kneel on a beach beneath a sky of broken clouds. Executioners hover over them, dressed in black, knives aglint. … This and other recent execution videos released by Islamic State are slickly produced narratives of multiple camera angles, eerie tension and polished editing that suggest the filmmakers are versed in Hollywood aesthetics.”
Was ISIS’s Attack On Mosul Museum Staged? Just Another Of Its “Cinema Of Terror” Pieces?
Christopher Knight, observing that several of the statues destroyed were obviously modern copies: “Earlier snuff videos … show the beheading of soldiers, journalists and humanitarian aid workers. The new video purports to show nothing less than the beheading of an entire civilization. The question is: Does it really? Or is the video, instead, a grotesque perversion of performance art, cynically designed to inflate the image of Islamic State power?”
Iraq’s National Museum Reopens, In Gesture Of Defiance To ISIS
“In response to the destruction of antiquities in Mosul last week by Islamic State militants, the Iraqi government reopened the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad this weekend, with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi speaking out against the terrorist group at the ribbon cutting.”
The Show That’s Turning Islamophobia Into A Laugh Riot
“What do you do if your inbox is clogged up with anti-Muslim hate mail? Turn it into a cabaret show. Daryl Lindsey reports from Berlin on a strangely joyful evening of horrendous abuse.”
Maggie Smith Will Do No More Theatre – “It’s So Exhausting”
“I just don’t think I could cope with it. Almost every Wednesday and Saturday I wake up relieved it’s not a matinee.. … It’s hard enough doing film and television, but at least you know it’s not day, after day, after day. I just found it so exhausting.” (By the way, what she actually said about Downton Abbey is less definitive than you think.)
Stolen 400-Year-Old Books on Their Way Home To Italy
“This is the odyssey of two rare books that were taken from an Italian library and wound up in the hands of a Bay Area rare-book collector. The books are safe and sound, the Homeland Security Department said, and heading home to their rightful owner.”
Should The NYPD Be Deciding When Busking Counts As Art And When As Begging?
“Recently, a busking video went viral. In it a police officer, armed with a gun and club, passed judgment on a busker, who protested by reading out the law covering art in public. He got a loitering charge. Boos are bad, hisses worse and an audience unsatisfied enough to pelt is humiliating. But a criminal record? Does society want such severity?”
The Economics Of Arthur Miller’s Plays
“But it was really his view of the crash of 1929 and the Great Depression: even more than an economic crash, it was a national emotional collapse, ‘like all the winds had stopped, gone dead’ … That sense of existential and economic desperation carries across all his plays.”
Concertgoers Start Yelling At Each Other Over When (Not) To Applaud
“The moment of shame came as the Staatskapelle Dresden, one of the world’s best orchestras, opened the 43rd Hong Kong Arts Festival with a performance of Richard Strauss’ Metamorphosen. … But just as the 20-minute masterpiece faded out into intense C minor chords, an audience member began to clap.” And then – well, not all hell, but some hell broke loose.
L.A. Phil’s Deborah Borda Is Going To Harvard (Temporarily)
“Deborah Borda will take a four-month sabbatical from her role as president and chief executive of the Los Angeles Philharmonic so that she can assume a residency at the Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass.”
Another Friday-Afternoon-News-Dump Departure: CEO Of L.A.’s Geffen Playhouse Steps Down
“Kenneth Novice has departed the Geffen Playhouse after serving as its managing director for more than five years, the company has announced.” Both parties refused to comment further.
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Russian Opera Director Faces Criminal Charge For Offending Religious Believers
“Thirty-year-old director Timofei Kulyabin told AFP he has been charged over his production of Wagner’s Tannhäuser at Novosibirsk’s State Opera and Ballet Theatre in Siberia, which premiered in December. ‘It’s absurd and I don’t want to take part in something absurd, to be honest,’ he said.”
The Philosophical Anxiety Behind The Arguments Over #TheDress
“What fascinates us about the dress, I think, isn’t its color: it’s the degree to which our perceptions can diverge. How could the same image appear so different to various people? The dress controversy is compelling because it touches, however unsophisticatedly, on some of the oldest and most difficult questions in philosophy of mind.”
A Day With Machiavelli In Exile
Johns Hopkins classicist Christopher Celenza looks at a letter Machiavelli wrote to a close friend describing his daily life in the country, not long after he was banned from Florence, during the period in which he wrote the first part of The Prince.
Here’s One Of Those Fairytales Rediscovered In Bavaria A Couple Years Ago
“An evil witch kidnapped three princesses and would not set them free. While they were in captivity, the girls learned a few magic tricks from the witch. …”