Today’s Stories
On Words Out Of Cultural Context And Banning Or Favoriting Them
“The United States has never been totally segregated, but this new world exposes everyone to everyone else in unprecedented intensity. Just like we sound like our friends, just like someone with a new friend group will inevitably find bits of new language and inside jokes slipped into their own speech, vernacular from here and there and wherever sneaks into conversations between people who’ve never been to those places.” – Public Books
Why Netflix Shouldn’t Give In To Movie Theatres For Its Releases
Netflix can deliver filmmakers a prospective audience of 300 million people (and growing) with each release. This film distribution strategy is enabling rich, diverse stories to reach a massive audience. And that should be celebrated as a win for movie lovers — and the movie business. – The Hollywood Reporter
A “Decade Of Reckoning” For Classical Music
Anne Midgette: “The music isn’t the problem, it’s the way we’re offering it.” Big, inflexible institutions take away the “oxygen and funds” from the smaller organizations, she argues, which typically have a stronger vision and take more risks. Audiences, she adds, prove time and again there’s no lack of interest. “I think the only reason orchestras are struggling is that not everybody wants to go and sit in a concert hall and have that experience. It’s not that people don’t want to hear Beethoven.” – NPR
Why Britain’s Working Classes Are In To The Classics
“Classical materials have been present in the identity construction and psychological experience of substantial groups of working-class Britons. Dissenting academies, Nonconformist Sunday schools and Methodist preacher-training initiatives all encouraged those who attended them to read widely in ancient history, ideas and rhetorical handbooks.” – Aeon
Why I Love “Bad” Movies
“We bad-movie watchers have our own anticriteria, the sorts of badness we prefer. Some of us use the term “bad movies” to mean, simply, films that emerge from a supposedly lowbrow genre, or films that are stylized in the manner we tend to label “camp.” (Road House from 1989 is this kind of bad movie, and is very good at being one.) Some of us prefer movies that are exploitative and tacky but, in a Nietzschean way, supposedly more alive than respectable ones.” – Hedgehog Review
The End Of The “Rude” Press
When I was growing up, every major American metro area had both a polite press—the local dailies—and a rude one: the alt-weeklies. The alt-weeklies were funded by advertisers the family-friendly media wanted nothing to do with. In the end, many of these publications were also simply killed by rich idiot owners or corporations that routinely purchase publications and ruin them out of both greed and incompetence. And so we (mostly) don’t have alt-weeklies anymore. – The New Republic
The ‘Mattress Monster’: Yvonne Rainer Recreates One Of Her Oddest Avant-Garde Dances From The 1960s
“It could be a dream or a nightmare. You’re 84. What would it be like to have an artistic conversation with your 30-year-old self? [Rainer] is finding that out as she reconstructs, in collaboration with Emily Coates, Parts of Some Sextets, which she created in 1965 for 10 performers and 12 mattresses. A complex braiding of movement, text and, yes, mattresses, it builds an invigorating labyrinth of choreographic activity.” – The New York Times
Pop Culture (For Good Or Bad) Unites Us Culturally. Will Streaming Wars Disrupt This?
“Pop culture is one of the things that unites us as Americans and a lot of our pop culture is bad. But the fact that a whole bunch of people watch The Masked Singer every week or that everybody watched the Game of Thrones finale, I love that aspect of our pop culture and I really worry about it going away.” – Vox
Amos Oz And The Challenges Of A Language Brought Back From The Dead
“To Oz, writing in Hebrew was like sculpting in solid rock and crusted sand at the same time. With one foot in the Hebrew of the Bible and the other in the mélange of linguistic influences that made up the vernacular in a young country of immigrants, the language could make a speaker prone to making missteps of word choice: ‘you don’t want to bring in Isaiah and Psalms and Mount Sinai’ to describe an argument over pocket change.” – The New Yorker
New York’s Iconic Drama Bookstore Finds A New Home After Rents Forced It Out
“It was both a destination for tourists and it was also our hub, and so we wanted to keep it close to the theater district. And, too, we’re in the business of creating community, and that’s another thing the Drama Book Shop does, and that’s incalculable — I can’t tell you how many creative teams on theater companies say ‘Let’s go meet at the book shop and talk there’.” – The New York Times
New Documentary Play Takes On Human Trafficking
“At a table reading of Live Bodies for Sale, a new docudrama about human trafficking in Northeast Ohio, playwright Christopher Johnston addresses the assembled cast and crew. ‘Everybody in this play is real,’ he says. ‘The characters, their monologues, are all taken from what these people have said to me in the time I’ve spent with them. We want to tell their stories.'” – American Theatre
Cookie Monster’s Lifelong Love Affair With Art
“I’ve suspected there is something life-affirming in Cookie Monster’s unabashed love and joy for cultural stimuli — so pure and brash that if he could eat it all, he would. Cookie Monster was once a bad example, designed to teach children about self-control — one mustn’t always eat cookies — but so much of Sesame Street’s ethos is about love and kindness for others, for the nuances of the human race, for oneself.” – Hyperallergic
How Do Movies Get Edited For Airlines To Show In-Flight? ‘Recklessly’
“As one editor who has been doing this type of work for 30 years and worked for nearly every major studio in Hollywood tells InsideHook, ‘The studios, outside of the creative groups, are full of people who have zero interest in or understanding of the creative process. They are pushing widgets. … Compromises are made in the name of cost. ‘The scene has nudity AND a key story element? Cut it!”” – InsideHook
Marin Alsop: Baltimore Symphony Has A Creativity Problem
“I find this is a difficult institution to get air time in because we don’t talk about the art first. Nobody ever talks to me. Barely. There’s no place to actually say these things safely, so I’m going to say them here.” – Baltimore Sun
Jan Erik Kongshaug, Revered Recording Engineer, Dead At 75
“[He] helped sculpt the rich and quietly splendorous sound of ECM Records, an influential label that has produced timeless jazz and contemporary classical recordings.” – The New York Times
Premium Classifieds
Director of Programming Opportunity with Playhouse Square in Cleveland, Ohio
Playhouse Square is searching for their next Director of Programming, who will be committed to advancing Playhouse Square’s mission of presenting and producing a wide variety of quality performing … [Read More...]
Call for Applications: Master of Arts in Arts Administration and Policy at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s (SAIC) Master of Arts (MA) in Arts Administration and Policy program provides a teaching and learning environment in which the role of the administrator is … [Read More...]
CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: Master of Arts in Visual Arts Administration at NYU Steinhardt
Bring your love of the arts to leadership positions with arts institutions through NYU Steinhardt's MA in Visual Arts Administration. Prepare for a dynamic career in the commercial or non-profit art … [Read More...]
BAM seeks a charismatic VP, Development
BAM is home to adventurous artists, audiences, and ideas. The VP, Development will to tap into new sources of support beyond the organization’s current base of supporters and serve as a strategic … [Read More...]
Global Arts Management Fellowship
The DeVos Institute invites applications for its Global Arts Management Fellowship – a three-year, cohort-based intensive for arts and cultural executives. Apply by Nov. 15. The Fellowship … [Read More...]
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, OREGON SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL, ASHLAND, OR
Oregon Shakespeare Festival invites applicants and nominations for this leadership position at one of nation’s leading regional theatres. The Executive Director will join Artistic Director … [Read More...]
CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: Master’s in Arts Administration & Museum Leadership
Accelerate your career with Drexel’s flexible graduate program tailored to your needs. Online, on-campus, or hybrid programs. Complete your degree in 15 months or on your own schedule in a program … [Read More...]
The Peace Center seeks a Vice President, Operations
DHR International has been exclusively retained to conduct the search for Vice President, Operations for the Peace Center in Greenville, SC. The Peace Center is the dominant performing arts … [Read More...]
Executive Director opportunity with South Carolina State Museum
DHR International has been exclusively retained to conduct the search for Executive Director of the South Carolina State Museum, the state's largest and most comprehensive museum. The Executive … [Read More...]
Boston Landmarks Orchestra Seeks Executive Director
Boston Landmarks Orchestra seeks an inspiring leader to advance the Orchestra’s mission of building community through innovative, free classical musical programming, accessibility and inclusiveness. … [Read More...]
Are Embassy Officials Using Diplomatic Immunity As Cover For Stealing Art?
Yes, scofflaw diplomats have been a problem for ages (ask any New Yorker who’s been clipped, or worse, by a UN delegate’s car), but over the past few years, artworks have been disappearing from certain embassies in Cairo, DC, Moscow, and other capitals. Some appear to have vanished without trace, and others have turned up at auction houses. – The Art Newspaper
Barnes & Noble Is Starting Its Own Book Of The Year Prize
“As one of the first initiatives under the leadership of new CEO James Daunt, Barnes & Noble has announced the shortlist for a new Book of the Year award. Books are nominated by B&N booksellers, who will also choose the winner. Booksellers are ‘voting for the title for which they are most proud to be selling,’ said Daunt,” who launched a similar prize at the UK chain Waterstones in 2012. – Publishers Weekly
DC’s National Symphony Is Launching Its Own Record Label
“In a collaboration influenced by [music director Gianandrea] Noseda’s role as principal guest conductor for the London Symphony Orchestra, the British symphony’s record label — LSO Live — will distribute the NSO’s new label.” The first release, with Dvořák’s Ninth Symphony and Copland’s Billy the Kid, is due on February 21. – Washingtonian
Zadie Smith Is Writing Her First Play, A Take On Chaucer
The Wife of Willesden will be a monologue giving Smith’s modern spin on The Wife of Bath’s Tale from Canterbury Tales. The piece will premiere next year in her home neighborhood, the northwest London borough of Brent, as part of its programming as London’s Borough of Culture. – The Guardian
The Movement To Turn Away BP’s Money Is Giving Britain’s Arts Fundraisers Heartburn
BBC arts editor Will Gompertz: “It has never been an easy task, but … what has become absolutely clear over the past 12 months is that arts organisations have to up their game when it comes to basic due diligence before accepting a sponsor’s money. It is no longer good enough to check the credentials of the sponsoring company. They now have to make sure the personal values of those who run and own it are compatible with their own charitable objectives.” – BBC
Cristian Măcelaru Appointed Music Director Of Orchestre National De France
Best known in the U.S. for his years as assistant and associate conductor and conductor-in-residence with the Philadelphia Orchestra and as music director of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Măcelaru is currently chief conductor of the WDR Symphony Orchestra in Cologne. He succeeds Emmanuel Krivine at the ONF in 2021. – OperaWire
Martin Scorsese’s Cogent Critique Of The Hollywood System
Scorsese isn’t inveighing against fantasy but against a system of production that submerges directors’ authority in a network of dictates and decisions issued from the top down—a network in which the director is more of a functionary than a creator. – The New Yorker
The Paralyzed Dancer Who Chooses to Dance
“I learned that the dancer inside me doesn’t care about this wheelchair. She just wanted to find a way to keep dancing. I think I’m living the life I was born to live. That was an accident, this is a choice.” WWL-TV (New Orleans)
Ready For The National Medal Of Arts, Trump Edition?
Under Trump, the awards stopped: He passed up chances to hand out the medals in 2017 and 2018—the longest drought in the past 35 years. But now, I’m told, he’s poised to announce his first slate of winners later this month. It not only includes names that seem, in part, to be tailored to the president’s personal preferences—namely, the actor and MAGA enthusiast Jon Voight and all five U.S. military bands. But in choosing the winners, Trump appears to have ignored input from the committee that typically recommends artistic luminaries as candidates for the award. – The Atlantic
Sabotage? Andras Schiff Went To Conduct The Montreal Symphony. It Didn’t Go Well
The Hungarian-born pianist, who was scheduled to play and conduct in the Maison symphonique on Oct. 23 and 24, ended up performing only before intermission in both concerts. Schiff withdrew from the second half of the program after an acrimonious rehearsal in which OSM sources say he criticized the players unfairly and even accused them of “sabotage.” – Montreal Gazette