“Manchester Camerata orchestra’s Music in Mind (MIM) projects, which involved 7,200 people in care homes and community projects across Greater Manchester last year, have had such dramatic effects on participants that academics at Manchester and Lancaster universities are backing a research student to create the world’s first in-the-moment, multi-sensory assessment tool to quantify that effect.”
Archives for February 2016
The Secrets That Drove The Author Of ‘Carol’
“Only Patricia Highsmith could phrase a novel of life-changing love in the language of Jack the Ripper.”
Is Music Reviewing Dead?
“With every new album available at our fingertips completely for free at the instant of its release for our own personal judgment, you’ve got to wonder: Do we still need the album review?”
This Artist Won The Rights To The World’s Darkest Pigment
“Anish Kapoor now owns the exclusive rights to the world’s darkest material — a claim that, naturally, is pissing off other artists. The pigment is the very sexy Vantablack, known as the blackest black out there — much blacker than a panther swimming in a tarpit.”
The Last Opera
“While his contemporaries steered toward modernism, Floyd took a more conservative tack musically, merging older European tradition with newer American folk music forms and regional vernacular. For years, Floyd’s approach kept some scholars from embracing his work. He wasn’t mentioned in Carolyn Abbate and Roger Parker’s ‘A History of Opera’ when it was published in 2012. ‘It’s telling that for years Philip Glass has been held up as important and Floyd hasn’t.'”
This Film School Is Leading The Way To Diversifying Movies (And Oscars)
“Located in a converted piano factory where it sits above state parole offices, Ghetto Film School aims to provide teenagers a foundation in filmmaking that can jump-start careers in the entertainment world. The organization’s founder, Joe Hall, likes to say that ‘if you weren’t born in the Coppola family, we’re your Coppola family.'”
The 87-Year-Old Musical Score Oscar Winner Explains How He Got Here
Ennio Morricone “never sloughed off any assignment. Even B action pictures like ‘Guns for San Sebastian’ and ‘The Five Man Army,’ both from the late ’60s, sport glorious themes befitting far better movies. His thrillers veer into the avant-garde. Even infamous bombs, such as ‘Exorcist II: The Heretic’ and ‘Mission to Mars,’ were inevitably buoyed by Morricone music.”
The Oscars Are Worse Than Meaningless
“If you regard the Oscars as anything but the annual, televised offsite retreat of a company that is hugely profitable despite everything about itself (complete with the crummy inside jokes), the problem is really with you. The Academy Awards were never meant to be anything but that.”
And Now On To Theatre Awards Season With The Olivier Nominations
“Stars have been no strangers to London stages in the last season, as evidenced by a lineup of Olivier-nominated actors this year that includes Branagh, Benedict Cumberbatch, Nicole Kidman and, fresh off his Academy Award win last night, Mark Rylance.”
A True Theatre Of Its Community Doesn’t Actually Stop When It Closes For Remodeling
“We’re not setting out to create an exotic cultural safari. It’s a fine line and a challenge … We are not going to disrespect the community by putting them on show, but we do want to remind people of the extraordinary diversity that is here on our streets.”
The Bipolar, Terrified, Fiercely Courageous Nina Simone
“Her repertoire was catholic—Gershwin, Ellington, Jacques Brel, Kurt Weill, Bob Dylan—but whatever she sang ended up sounding like a Nina Simone tune. She did not so much interpret songs as take possession of them.”
The Author Of ‘The Revenant’ Is Also A Lead Official At The World Trade Organization
And, as such, he cannot – by law – talk about his book. “‘It’s been frustrating,’ said Stephen Morrison, the publisher of Picador. ‘Any other author would be out on press junkets, but he’s not able to do any promotion at all.'”
Google Doodle Pays Tribute To A Dancer And Choreographer
“Rukmini Devi, born on February 29, 1904, in a Brahmin family in Madurai, was considered to be the most important revivalist in the Indian classical dance form. Despite strong protest, she not only supported this art form, but also took it to a higher level, which was considered a low and vulgar art in the early 1920s.”
In Case You Missed It: A List Of The Oscars Nominees, And The Winners
Everything that was nominated and all of the winners, including at least one or two partial surprises.
Let’s Talk About Penn Station And Design And What Went Wrong One More Time Before The Makeover
Or, as the subheadline of this article has it, “What makes New York’s Penn Station suck so bad?”
Top Stories From AJBlogs For 02.28.16
Svend Asmussen, 100
Today is the 100th birthday of the great Danish violinist Svend Asmussen. Without going into the details of Asmussen’s long, varied and influential career, let us simply recognize him as one of the handful (or… … read more
AJBlog: RiffTidesPublished 2016-02-28
Mavis Staples’ HBO doc hits relevant Civil Rights notes
“I’m not as frisky as I used to be but I feel like I am,” Mavis Staples speaks the truth with a grin and a twinkle in Mavis!, an endearingly upbeat bio doc premiering on… … read more
AJBlog: Jazz Beyond JazzPublished 2016-02-28
When a young Spanish director began making a film about a mad family of poets “during the waning days of the Franco dictatorship,” Aaron Shulman writes in the current issue of The Believer, it was… … read more
AJBlog: Straight|UpPublished 2016-02-28 BalletBoyz® and Pacific Northwest Ballet
A Berlin Museum Runs Tours In Arabic, Helping To Welcome Some Refugees
“The visits can be fraught. ‘Sometimes people say: ‘The Germans have all our heritage! They stole it!’’ said Zoya Masoud, 27, who led the Arabic-language tour that afternoon at the Museum of Islamic Art, which is part of the Pergamon Museum and filled with treasures from empires past. Often, the visitors say the art is probably better off in Berlin because so much in Syria has been destroyed by the war and the Islamic State, Ms. Masoud said.”
How To Discourage People Of Color From Going Into The Arts
“What happens when people of color are discouraged—both implicitly as well as explicitly—from going into the arts and humanities? Here, I’m not just talking about the lack of mentors or opportunities in these fields. I’m also talking about pressures from politicians, from college administrators, even from one’s own family.”
Can Crowdfunding Save JMW Turner’s House From Collapsing?
“Keeping it standing has involved clearing blocked lavatories by hand, shovelling up fallen bricks and plaster, chopping down trees whose roots were ripping apart foundations and, worse, sewer pipes, and scrubbing down all four walls of a room so cold and damp it had become covered in mould from skirting board to ceiling.”
Oscars New York Times Live Blog
“From the first seconds of his monologue, Chris Rock did not hold back on addressing the racial tension in Hollywood and in America, referring to the Oscars as the ‘White People’s Choice Awards.'”
You Might Soon See A Lot More Of Robert Rauschenberg’s Art
The Rauschenberg Foundation “has decided to adopt a new policy of making images of Rauschenberg work much more widely available free. In doing so, it is urging other artists’ estates and foundations to take a hard look at protections it believes — in the name of safeguarding works from piracy or misuse — have become too restrictive, especially in the digital era.”
These Films And Actors Might Not Win Oscars, But They Dominated The Indie Spirit Awards
“It was as if the Independent Spirits, which manage to pull off an impish, scrappy vibe despite counting Bank of America and American Airlines among their sponsors, were gleefully sending rebuke after rebuke to the beleaguered Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and its #OscarsSoWhite ways.”
What Can We Learn About How To Live In The World By Reading Fantasy Fiction?
“Hope isn’t stupid.”
That Time Bette Davis Became The First Woman To Be Academy President – And Resigned In Disgust
“She had two big initiatives she immediately pushed to enact. First, she wanted to reformat the annual Academy Awards banquet. Since her election, Pearl Harbor had been attacked, thrusting America into World War II and prompting calls for the cancellation of the Oscars, which had theretofore centered around dinner and dancing. She argued that it would be more appropriate to scrap the dinner and dancing and present the awards in a large theater, charging at least $25 a seat and donating the proceeds to war relief efforts.”
What Kind Of Art Are We Sending To The Moon On The MoonArk?
“Everything, however, remains visual; nothing exists in data form. To accomplish this, the team had professional engravers laser-etch the various visuals in platinum on sapphire discs, resulting in delicate-looking objects that are works of art in their own right.”