“The effects of this relatively tiny allocation are clear: despite India’s rich and diverse cultural heritage, many of its national museums remain uninspiring, hardly drawing any visitors despite their incredibly affordable entry prices. And several heritage sites, including the iconic Taj Mahal, are in a bad state, suffering from the effects of poor maintenance and pollution. Some important monuments …, including prehistoric megaliths and temple ruins, have even gone missing.”
Archives for January 2017
Pioneering Nigerian-British Novelist Buchi Emecheta Dead At 72
“[Her] 20 novels mined her experience as a black single mother in Britain to produce work that inspired a generation of black British writers.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 01.30.17
In Philadelphia: Revolutionary Art
In today’s New York Times, I wrote about the conservation and erection of George Washington’s surviving field headquarters tent – a fragile thing, as you may well imagine. … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2017-01-30
The Composition Program of My Dreams
When I was an undergraduate student, I won a prize that got me a reading session with the school orchestra. I showed up for the session and discovered that one of the professors had decided … read more
AJBlog: Infinite Curves Published 2017-01-30
Snapshots from the Culture Crash: 1
Longtime music journalist Steve Mirkin has been, like a lot of us in the creative class, though a series ups and downs since the Internet remade journalism and the recession undercut the middle class. … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrash Published 2017-01-29
Chuck Stewart And Ed Berger, RIP
Two non-musicians prominent in the US jazz community have died in the past week. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2017-01-29
Monday Recommendation: A Film About Rhaasan Roland Kirk
Rahsaan Roland Kirk, The Case Of The Three Sided Dream (Arthaus Musik/Monoduo Films) … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2017-01-30
The Great American Play? And The Audience Survey Says…
“The experiment brings to mind Komar and Melamid’s “Most Wanted” project in the 1990s, in which that Russian duo created paintings based on polls of what people from various countries like to see in art. Here, the cast, with help from the musician Liljie, go through vignettes that illustrate some of the survey’s results.”
How Do We Make Jazz More Viable? Harvard Business School Takes Up The Case
“The dilemma here is how do you get young people at any age to start being interested in jazz? There is some research that says that people imprint on music in their romantic years, the time that they’re dating. That would be high school through college, more or less. Jazz is losing generations of young people because they’re not exposed to it during that time. Jazz is no longer the music of rebellion, hip hop is. This is not something that’s easily solved.”
The Corporatization And Consolidation Of New York’s Music Scene
“But in the increasingly consolidated concert business, the reality is that corporate dollars are taking over, even in the clubs that for decades seemed to embody rock music’s anti-establishment ethos.”
What London’s National Gallery Learned Giving Live-Streaming Gallery Tours
“Though we have seen uplifts in ticket sales during the days following broadcasts, it quickly became clear that the segment of our audience who have been most enthusiastic about the broadcasts are those who are not able to come to the National Gallery in person.”
Report On The State Of British Orchestras: Playing More, Earning Less
“The total number of concerts and performances staged by these organisations increased by 7% between 2013 and 2016, and audiences grew by 3%. Outreach programmes for children and young people saw a 35% increase in participation… Despite the growth in performances, total income among the group studied fell by 5%, with earned income, contributed income and public funding all showing decreases. Earned income continues to account for 48% of all income, while the proportion raised from public funding fell by one percentage point to 34%.”
Why Are Poets So Bad At Writing About Their Relationships To Money?
Few poets write honestly about their economic situation. Indeed, it’s a challenge to find any poet willing to come clean about money: wanting it, enjoying it, needing it, or lacking it—even though this must necessarily be our condition.
Number Of Behind-The-Camera Women Fell In Oscar-Nominated Movies This Year
Women earned a number of barrier-breaking Oscar nominations this year, but overall representation of women in Oscar-nominated behind-the-scenes categories fell two percent according to a report from the Women’s Media Center published Monday.
A New York Times Primer On The New Fight Over US Arts Funding
Not since the days of Ronald Reagan and later Newt Gingrich has the debate over federal arts spending seemed to roil so feverishly.
John Adams At 70
“The Pacific Coast, and California in particular, has worked its magic on a host of American composers over the years, from figures like Henry Cowell and Lou Harrison, who started out here, to such postwar emigres as Stravinsky and Schoenberg who arrived here with centuries of European musical history packed inside their valises. But no one has fused those strains — the freedom and sunny openness of the California milieu with the expressive depth and constructive rigor of late Romanticism — with the facility and grace that Adams has shown over a long career.”
What The Milo Yiannopolous Book Deal Reveals About The State Of Book Publishing
The idea of “editorial independence,” like the idea of free speech, is not faulty per se, nor is it necessarily misapplied. But Milo’s’ case reveals the contradictions of any endeavor that speaks in noble tones about the profit motive.
Technology That Can Show You What Your Brain Looks Like When Its Processing Music
“Joe showed me the color-coding and the lines so you could see alpha waves in one color, and theta and delta waves in different colors. We saw this incredible spectacle, with groups of lines wavering in a kind of order. It was phenomenal — we were looking at the rhythms of the brain. At that moment, the idea of Portrait of Your Mind was born.”
Why Books Are More Important Than Ever Now
“Reading gives you an opportunity to understand someone else’s perspective, no matter how much you disagree with it. I wish that everyone had the opportunity to try to inhabit someone else’s experiences for a few hours, and literature is a great way to do that. Books are especially useful because the depth of engagement that someone has with a book allows them to really stay with it and to spend some time with that different perspective. I wish I could give all of my friends and family members I have arguments with a book and say ‘read this and tell me what you think!’ They may not end up agreeing with me, but they might understand a bit better where I’m coming from.”
How Social Media Can Blunt Celebrity
“Twitter hashtags and Change.org petitions can be blunt instruments, even unfair ones based on misunderstandings or simplifications, but, on its good days, social media is remarkably effective at speaking truth to power. People cossetted by their privilege can be quickly forced to recognize what it feels like at the bottom of the heap.”
St. Louis Symphony Signs New Five-Year Contract With Musicians
“The main points of the contract are financial. There will be pay increases averaging 2.8 percent annually, for an increase in the minimum scale from $86,053 in fiscal 2017 to $98,304 in fiscal 2022, and a half-percent increase in the pension contribution rate starting in the contract’s third year. Work rules will also be adjusted, permitting more flexibility in scheduling and in how the orchestra is used, more efficiency in rehearsals, adding personal days for the first time, and increasing flexibility in touring rules.”
How Many Trump Neologisms Can The OED Fit Into Its Newest Edition?
If nothing else, Brexit and Trump are endless sources of new words: “Trumponomics (the president’s economic policy), trumpertantrum (angry early-morning tweeting laced with innuendo and falsehood) and trumpkin (a pumpkin carved to resemble the former TV host) are among neologisms added to a watchlist of words that may be fast-tracked into the Oxford English Dictionary. “
Clarinettist On Tour With Yo-Yo Ma Has No Idea If He Will Be Allowed Back Into The United States
Kinan Azmeh, a Syrian clarinettist who has lived in the US legally for 16 years and acquired a green card three years ago, flew to China three weeks ago to tour with Yo-Yo Ma. “I have my apartment. You know, 16 years is not a short time, you accumulate lots of stuff. … But what is not replaceable is all the friends who are incredibly supportive.”
Dancing Isn’t Enough Exercise For Ballet Dancers, So They Crosstrain Too
Seriously, dance practice 30 or more hours a week doesn’t provide enough cardio or core strength, or so the dancers say.
Princess Di Deserves Better Than A Tacky Bronze Statue
The Guardian’s art critic isn’t mincing words. “For William and Harry to announce they are going to commission a public statue is a smack in the face for any idea that modern British art is democratic and egalitarian. The royals are weighing in on art, and their commission – with what is ultimately our money – looks as if it will be an unmediated expression of their personal taste. Clearly, their choice of art will be influential and powerful. It could also be stupid.”
Making Baghdad’s Walls Beautiful Again
Image of Hope came about because of this: “Baghdad became increasingly divided into neighbourhoods, separated by brick walls. The once lively and energetic city started to lose its character and atmosphere. The walls did not only serve security purposes, but political and armed groups also used them as canvasses for sectarian slogans and political propaganda.”
Is The National Theatre Going Too Far To Support New Plays?
Where are the classics? Almost nowhere to be found. The Guardian’s Michael Billington: “This strikes me as a staggering dereliction of the National’s duty.”
In A Time Of Nativism, A Challenge For The International Art World
Or not? “‘Art is a transcontinental commodity,’ said William Weston, a specialist dealer in modern prints. … ‘Nationalism won’t harm its trading position. It won’t affect the market in New York or London. Americans won’t stop buying David Hockney because he’s a British artist.'”
It Was The Orange Prize, Then The Baileys Prize, And Now It Needs A New Sponsor
Not only that, but it may not be a prize anymore: “Organisers of the women’s prize have said they want its next sponsor to pay for a year-long boost for women’s fiction, rather than a once-a-year celebration when the winner is declared.”