“If the opera world has changed, VO is trying to change with it. Last year, in a shocker, the company announced that it would be moving after the 2015-16 season to a festival model. While some people understood the rationale and acknowledged the company’s tough position as well as the budgetary – and other – advantages of a festival model, others were vehemently opposed – most notably and vocally, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra music director Bramwell Tovey.”
Archives for June 2016
Tacoma Public Radio Station Buys Its Independence
“We received 24,000 donations,” KPLU station manager Joey Cohn said. The deal, he said, stipulated that KPLU pay “$7 million in cash and $1 million in ‘in-kind’ support,” meaning spot ads promoting PLU.
How Should We Respond To Evil? Destroy It? (Good Luck With That)
“Recent history and philosophy have taught that violence is the surest outcome of blithely ascribing the quality of evil to another. At best, this process may supplant the thing we brand evil for a time, but the notion that evil can be ‘destroyed’ is an ethical version of a fool’s errand. “
Gender Breakdown: Here’s Who’s Working In America’s LORT Theatres
“Phase two of the LORT designers study continues to collect data on gender of designers, and begins to look at directors and artistic directors, partially in relation to designers.”
How ‘Phubbing’ Went From Rudeness To Normal Behavior
“People are phubbed, but they are also phubbers. In an environment where people are constantly switching from being the protagonists and recipients of this behavior, our data suggests that phubbing becomes seen as the norm.”
Do Some Artists Create Too Much Art?
R. F. Luchetti has written 1,551 books. Woody Allen has directed 46 movies. Some artists are incredibly prolific – and successful – at the their work. But is there such a thing as too much? Have Damien Hirst or Stephen King made too much? Here’s a list of high producers in various art forms.
Arizona Theatre Company Says It Might Have To Close
“In a memo sent on Monday, June 27, to subscribers and donors, the company said that if it did not meet its fundraising goal by Friday, July 1, it would suspend the upcoming season — which would be its 50th — to give it time to reorganize and revamp its business model, with plans to return in 2017-18.”
The Hong Kong Booksellers Who Were Kidnapped By Chinese Police: A Follow-Up
“Five booksellers from Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay Books disappeared in 2015, of whom Lam [Wing-kee] was the fourth to reappear (leaving only one, Swedish citizen Gui Minhai, still in PRC custody). … Reactions since Lam’s release have been mixed. On June 17, he led thousands of protestors through the streets of Hong Kong.” But the three others who were held and have been released have accused Lam of lying.
An Algorithm Says This Book Should Be The Ultimate Bestseller (So Why Didn’t It Make Any Bestseller Lists?)
“The algorithm looks at themes, plot, character, setting, and also the frequencies of tiny but significant markers of style. The ‘bestseller-ometer’ then makes predictions, picking out which specific combinations of these features will resonate with readers. The authors claim that it is correct ‘over eighty percent of the time’.” But the only book to score 100% from the algorithm has had only middling sales.
ISIS Destroys Another Ancient Assyrian Temple
“The destruction of the Temple of Nabu in the Assyrian city of Nimrud in northern Iraq by the Islamic State has been condemned by UNESCO and a leading UK archaeologist. As part of its propaganda campaign, the jihadist group issued video footage earlier this month that appeared to show part of the ancient archaeological site being blown up.”
World’s Oldest Working Photo Studio Closes After 176 Years
“Bourne & Shepherd, named for its founding British photographers, Samuel Bourne and Charles Shepherd, officially closed earlier this month, following its last owners’ loss of a 14-year legal battle over the company’s sole space, a building in Kolkata’s busy Esplanade area.”
‘Angels In America,’ The Oral History – How Tony Kushner’s Play Became The Defining Work Of American Art Of The Past 25 Years
“Twenty-five years ago this summer, Tony Kushner’s Angels in America premiered in the tiny Eureka Theatre in San Francisco’s Mission District. Within two years it had won the Pulitzer Prize … Slate talked to more than 50 actors, directors, playwrights, and critics to tell the story of Angels‘ turbulent ascension into the pantheon of great American storytelling – and to discuss the legacy of a play that feels, in an era in which gay Americans have the right to marry but still in many ways live under siege, as crucial as ever.”
The Beat Goes On: Lawrence Ferlinghetti And Sterling Lord, Still Friends And Business Associates As They Approach 100
“The partnership between Mr. Ferlinghetti and Mr. Lord, two towering legends in the publishing world, traces back to the heady, early days of the Beat movement … Though neither of them can recall precisely when they first met, their long association dates from the 1950s, when they became acquainted through Jack Kerouac, one of Mr. Lord’s first clients.”
A New All-Women Orchestra, Playing Only Women Composers
The Allegra Chamber Orchestra, based in Vancouver and open to musicians who identify as women, gave its first performance this week. (includes audio)
Is ‘Art For Art’s Sake’ Just A Conceit Of The Privileged?
Pankaj Mishra: “Artists in America and Western Europe have been allotted a share, however small, in their nations’ wealth and power. … Art itself in [less prosperous and open societies] may seem the prerogative of the socially privileged; but it has to flourish for the sake of much more than art.”
Rivka Galchen: “Art that directs our feelings about contemporary events, even when well intentioned, quickly reads as dated, corrupted, almost always wrong. … Art for art’s sake avoids false warmth; it is untamed, but orderly.”
Clement Crisp Remembers The Bolshoi Ballet’s First-Ever Visit To The West, 60 Years Ago In London
“Three days before booking opened, there was a queue for the box office that stretched down the street and, Topsy-like, kept on growing. … We settled down to wait for the opening night on October 3 – with wild hopes that requests for first-night tickets might be answered. Then came the affair of Nina and the hats.”
Bud Spencer, Star Of Spaghetti Westerns And Olympic Athlete, Dead At 86
“By the time Bud Spencer attracted legions of Italian spaghetti western film fans, including Quentin Tarantino, he had done more than most people do in a lifetime … He worked as a multi-sport Olympic athlete, politician, entrepreneur, pilot and, yes, an actor.”
Pierre Audi Will Leave Dutch National Opera To Run Aix Festival
“Pierre Audi, who recently became the artistic director of the Park Avenue Armory [in New York], has been named the next director of the Aix-en-Provence Festival in southern France, … Mr. Audi, a stage director and impresario known for fostering contemporary work and for projects of daunting ambition, has led the Dutch National Opera for three decades. But he’ll give up Amsterdam for Aix in 2018.”
Dr. Seuss’s Only Live-Action Feature, ‘The 5,000 Fingers Of Dr. T’
“The film’s producer, Stanley Kramer, that most earnest of Hollywood liberals, never oversaw anything comparable to this extravagant Technicolor vision of a tyrannical piano teacher’s quest for world domination. Nor was any other anti-fascist musical children’s film expected to precipitate a merchandising bonanza. (It never happened.)”
Self-Care: An ABT Principal On Sleep, Diet, Athleticism, Pain, And Adrenaline
Isabella Boylston: “My relationship to pain is obviously a lot different than most people, as a ballerina. Dancers do have a really high pain tolerance. … We just don’t know when to stop. … The great thing about performing is that all the adrenaline takes the pain away. I never feel pain in a performance. The next day that I’m like, Owww.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 06.28.16
This Week in Audience: The Latest Fronts On Understanding Who’s Paying Attention
Is social media communication, marketing, art, or all three? … The perils of market research when it drives your art … The latest front on artists’ war on cell phone use … How NPR discovered a ton of information about its listeners … How the internet is changing our perceptions of the world. … read more
AJBlog: AJ Arts Audience Published 2016-06-28
Brexit and culture: it’s complicated
There is a tension, for which there is no easy resolution, between wanting to have a society that is open and welcoming and inclusive to people and their traditions from around the world, and the preservation of what is seen to be special, exceptional, about the extant native culture. … read more
AJBlog: For What It’s Worth Published 2016-06-28
What Can Be Left Out
My point last week was about planning and about understanding the essential work of your organization. This time I’m focusing on my call for arts organizations to become indispensable. … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2016-06-28
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Why Doesn’t Canada Have A National Theatre?
“At a time when many in the arts bemoan shrinking audiences, wonder whether live performance is losing social relevance and even predict the death of theatre, here is a new institution vigorously engaging local and global audiences through national drama. It’s enough to make you ask, why doesn’t Canada have a national theatre?”
Philosophy’s Diversity Problem (Not What You Think)
“Philosophy must become more diverse in order to make progress on its fundamental questions. But cultural diversity means something different in philosophy, compared with other humanities disciplines.”
Problem: Artificial Intelligence Starts With The Biases Of Its Programmers
“Sexism, racism and other forms of discrimination are being built into the machine-learning algorithms that underlie the technology behind many “intelligent” systems that shape how we are categorized and advertised to.”
Tempting As It Is To Think That Hard Work Matters More Than Talent…
“Far from undervaluing effort, Americans seems to overestimate the potential of their own endeavour. A 2014 study by Pew Research found that 73 per cent of Americans believe that hard work is very important to success, the highest out of all the countries surveyed. Only 49 per cent of Germans agreed. We know, from a growing pile of evidence from many different sources, that while innate ability is far from the only contributor to success, it is probably the best predictor of it.”
A Hostile University Revolution That’s Disrupting Education
“For, whomever or whatever you might blame for the current state of affairs, the recent hostilities have been distinctly unfriendly to the creating and sustaining of intellectual energy. Universities need to get beyond these disputes, at least to some degree, if they are going to retain any meaningful chance to fulfill their social missions.”
Why Even Skilled People Make Big Mistakes In Chess (Or Anything Else)
“The fact that mistakes have more to do with the problem itself, as opposed to skill or time, raises questions well beyond the domain of chess.”
Edward Snowden’s Busy International Social Life – As A Robot
“Snowden’s body might be confined to Moscow, but the former NSA computer specialist has hacked a work-around: a robot. If he wants to make his physical presence felt in the United States, he can connect to a wheeled contraption called a BeamPro, a flat-screen monitor that stands atop a pair of legs, five-foot-two in all, with a camera that acts as a swiveling Cyclops eye.”
Ta-Nehisi Coates: The Playboy Interview
Q: “You’ve said that when you look at yourself in the mirror you see a guy who got fired three times. Do you think there will ever be a point when you’ll look in the mirror and see the dude who changed the game with Between the World and Me?”
A: “No, because that remains to be seen. And the game could get changed back.”
Benign Neglect – Why Are America’s Great Symphonists Ignored?
“A British colleague observed that American works, highly celebrated in their own time among musicians, contrast in their current obscurity with comparable works by UK composers that are increasingly celebrated in the UK. This got me wondering: have US musicians and presenters unjustly ignored their own symphonists, or have audiences voted against them?”