Music funding announced for fellow-primates
AJBlog: Slipped Disc | Published 2014-03-31
Want to hear some achingly beautiful ringtones?
AJBlog: Slipped Disc | Published 2014-03-31
Definitions: Two Experts Opine On What Museums/Directors Should Do
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts | Published 2014-03-31
‘Women conductors? It’s not getting any better, only worse’
AJBlog: Slipped Disc | Published 2014-03-31
Help, I’m Breaking Up!
AJBlog: Dancebeat | Published 2014-03-30
Archives for March 2014
So We Borrowed This Ancient Crimean Art – Where Are We Supposed to Return It?
“Scythian gold and other rare artefacts from Crimea on loan to an Amsterdam museum are in legal limbo after Russia’s annexation of the peninsula. … The show features ancient jewellery and armour on loan from five Ukrainian museums, including four in the Crimea.”
Stolen Renoir Finally Makes It Home After 62 Years
“It has the makings of a great mystery: Artwork stolen from a prominent museum, plus the FBI, a beautiful woman and an intrepid reporter. But this isn’t fiction, it’s a strange, true tale of how a painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir has now safely returned home to Baltimore.”
Russia’s Top Theater Festival Keeps Growing and Growing
The Golden Mask festival began in 1995 as Moscow’s equivalent of the Tonys. Now theater companies (and opera and dance troupes) from throughout Russia spend three weeks in March and April in the capital competing for awards in 34 categories – and that’s not even counting fringe fests and tours.
Why Does It Matter That Heidegger Was Anti-Semitic?
“Why do these thinkers’ personal lives and ideological compromises seem unusually relevant to their work, beyond the usual scandal-sheet Schadenfreude? It may have something to do with their distinctive views regarding the relevance (or, rather, irrelevance) of character and personality to the objects of their study.”
At 81, Playwright Athol Fugard Looks Back On Aging And Apartheid
“I think it is under the pressure of desperation that extraordinary things can happen in a human life. And if ever there was a country oversupplied with desperation, it was South Africa in that time.” (audio)
Last.fm to Shut Down Streaming Radio Service
The company “said it will continue to deliver personalized music to its listeners via a new music player that’s currently being tested. The difference is the music will not come from its own servers. Instead, music will be piped in from YouTube and VEVO onto the new player.”
BBC, Going All-In on the Arts, Cancels Long-Running Arts Show
“The BBC has axed long-running culture programme The Review Show, in the week director general Tony Hall promised the corporation’s ‘strongest commitment to the arts in a generation’.”
China’s Dan Brown (Only He’s Really Good)
“The literary writer who attains commercial success is a rare breed. One who mixes genres, merges history with fable, and mines the constrictive reality of his repressive state – while boasting of sales in the millions – may only exist in one person. And, surprisingly enough, that person is Chinese.”
China’s Latest Urban Problem: Flocks of Dancing Old Folks
Retired city folks are cranking their boom boxes and boogie-ing in parks, squares and parking lots – and driving the neighbors nuts. The elders themselves – tens of millions of them – say it’s good for their physical and mental well-being (and digestion, too).
Rumsfeld’s Knowns and Unknowns: The Intellectual History of a Quip
“I recall many people viewing it as handwaving nonsense meant to cover over reality. It was a laughingstock … but wasn’t [it] a brilliantly pithy piece of popular epistemology? Decoupled from its context, it seemed smart … and I’d wager most people couldn’t tell you what Rumsfeld was talking about when he said it.”
Why Do Humans Laugh? (It’s Rarely Just Because Something’s Funny)
“The laughter of our everyday lives isn’t for the most part in response to anything resembling jokes. Instead, most of it occurs in conversations that, out of context, don’t seem funny at all.” (Remember the “laughing disease” epidemic in Tanzania?) What makes us do it?
Should Austria Preserve Thousands of Jobs by Buying Art From This Bankrupt Man?
“[Karlheinz] Essl, the owner of the Austrian DIY firm bauMax, is hoping to sell the 7,000 works in his collection to the Austrian state in an effort to bail out his struggling business and save 4,000 jobs.”
Spain’s TV Networks in Trouble as Dubbing Actors Strike
“Most foreign films and shows are dubbed on Spanish television, and the strike by 250 actors” – now in its third week – “has delayed the broadcast of new episodes, leaving major networks showing reruns.”
Why Michelle Williams Is Willing to Try Singing and Dancing in Public
“I’m not good at thinking things through. I get excited about something, and that outweighs everything else. I don’t really carry the vision down the line to see the possibilities of how it might turn out. I think that for my work that’s actually been an O.K. trait. For life, not so good.”
Who Else Could Play Walter White, LBJ, And Jerry Seinfeld’s Dentist?
Bryan Cranston spends 45 minutes with Terry Gross. (audio)
The Best Radio Play Ever (It Took 20 Years to Write)
Jasper Rees recounts the long and tortured genesis of Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood.
What Was So New About Italian Futurism?
“Futurists like [Marinetti and] Pannaggi may have been trying to break civilization wide open. They may have declared a new age of speed and violence and radical newness. But as soon as they attempted to analyze that newness, as soon as they attempted to say something about their brave new world, they found themselves pulled back into history and tradition.”
Italy Pledges €135M to Restore Southern Heritage Sites
“The Campania region is expected to get the greatest share of the funding: €43.1m for five projects,” with more than €30m each for Sicily and Puglia and €26.8m going to Calabria.
Bulgari Will Save Rome’s Spanish Steps
“The jewellery and luxury goods company Bulgari has responded to the Italian government’s appeal to restore the Spanish Steps in Rome, with a gift of €1.5m to finance the two-year project, due to start in 2015.”
Music As Unique Object: Band Will Release Only One Copy Of Its New Album
The band is Wu-Tang Clan. “Like the work of a master Impressionist, it will truly be one-of-a-kind—in lieu of a traditional major label or independent launch, the iconic hip-hop collective will make and sell just one copy of the album. And similar to a Monet or a Degas, the price tag will be a multimillion-dollar figure.”
The Perplexing Events That Led To Shutting Down San Diego Opera
“The vote took some board members by surprise. In past meetings, plenty of discussions about fundraising troubles and shrinking audiences occurred, but no talk of an immediate shutdown. Just two weeks before the vote, Ian Campbell attended a regular board meeting to talk up the 50th anniversary season in 2015.”
A Big New UK Theatre Subsidy! Great! Now What (And Who) Should Qualify?
Starting in September, producers of touring shows in the UK will be able to claim up to a 25% tax rebate, with other productions receiving 20%. So what exactly will be the definition of what qualifies as touring shows and productions?
What’s The Key To Patience In The Age Of Distraction?
Much of our talk of patience today disguises itself with words like “attention,” “mindfulness,” and “time management.” Patience is required to pay attention to the article before us, to be mindful of the person in front of us, and to manage our time in such a way that we accomplish all the tasks required of us.
Most Young People Now Prefer Media To Books. Is This A Problem?
“More than 60 per cent of 18-to-30-year-olds now prefer watching television or DVDs to reading, according to a survey for the charity Booktrust. A similar proportion of young people think the internet and computers will replace books in the next 20 years.”
Prospect Is Out With Its Annual List Of The World’s Top Thinkers (and There’s Been A Shakeup)
“Twenty-two of the new list (44%) are women, a considerable advance on the blokeish 2013 squad. How has that been achieved? One factor is a marked increase in the number of philosophers, up this time from four to 14 (28%) to improbably make philosophy the second best-represented subject behind economics, which boasts a spectacular proportion.”
The Paper Versus EBooks Debate Is A Waste Of Time (Isn’t It?)
“Until a digital book is a magical object which physically transforms from 50 Shades into the new James Smythe novel according to your whim; until you can walk through a digital library and open books at random; until the technology becomes as satisfying to the physical senses as the text is to the cognitive self, there’s still a need for shiny, gorgeous, satisfying books.”
Why Hire One Music Director When You Can Hire Two?
The Westchester Philharmonic: “While the leadership arrangement is unusual, its contours have become clearer in recent weeks as next season’s programming takes shape. Mr. Laredo and Mr. Sperling will each conduct two concerts — a fifth conducting slot will be filled by a guest — and both will have substantial sway over the choice of material and soloists.”
Dancer Wendy Whelen To Leave NY City Ballet After 30 Years
“It’s exactly like a 30-year circle,” said Ms. Whelan, 46, who joined City Ballet as an apprentice in 1984 and went on to become a prima ballerina and to create roles in new ballets by choreographers including Christopher Wheeldon, Twyla Tharp and Alexei Ratmansky, among others.
This Year’s Winners Of The Met Opera National Auditions
This season more than 1,500 aspiring singers participated in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, thought to be the most prestigious voice competition in the field.