“Personal politics aside, there are practical reasons why people in the arts are worried that Brexit will be bad news – including their concerns about free movement of talent, funding and Britain’s reputation around the world. But others are seeing silver linings. Here are some of the ways Brexit could affect the UK’s creative industries and talent.”
Archives for May 2018
Top Posts From AJBlogs 05.30.18
The pyramid and the wheel
There are countless ways to categorize collective human action (by legal entity, by sector, by formal/informal structure, by tax status, by geography, and on and on). But sociologist/political-scientist/historian Johan Galtung suggests there are essentially two … read more
AJBlog: The Artful Manager Published 2018-05-30
Recent Listening, In Brief
Keeping up with the ceaseless flow of jazz albums is impossible, but it’s a pleasure to try. Here are short reviews of a few relatively recent releases. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2018-05-30
How Music Has Informed Science
In Greek tradition, music ranked equal in status to arithmetic, geometry and spherics (astronomy), which together comprised the quadrivium, the core curriculum of four disciplines that a learned person was expected to master.
An Art Prize That Has Engaged Philanthropists In Social Justice?
Collectors have historically deferred to institutional givers to do the heavy lifting when it comes to traditional grantmaking and the red-hot area of activist art in particular. This is why Gund’s Art for Justice Fund is so important. It’s predicated on the idea that by selling their work, collectors can advance social justice. As Ford President Darren Walker noted, “art has meaning on a wall, but it also has meaning when it is monetized.”
Why Classical Music Should Care About Architecture
“Our destinies are very much tethered to the direction of the overall city. Certainly a hall can be an anchor institution, but if nothing is going on inside the hall most of the time, then it is dead space. It is important that as we design these halls they can be used throughout the day. One of the things that I am trying to do is to re-imagine the foyer of the concert hall as a shared workspace. It could be like a public library, where pretty much anyone can go in there. What if we were to merge public libraries and concert halls so that the experience is like going into a learning center that has a concert hall within it?”
Seattle Was Recently Named A UNESCO “City Of Literature.” So What Does That Mean?
“If this plays out right, people will be coming from all over. They’ll be looking for readings, visiting bookstores, making pilgrimages to our downtown library — they’ll know about all the things we have to offer. Once that positive reinforcement loop gets going, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
The Shed Is NY’s Most-Anticipated New Arts Project. Why Do We Need It?
What does the Shed’s sliding roof get you that the sliding wooden panels don’t? The answer: It gets you bang for your half billion bucks. The Shed wants to be grand. The Shed wants awe. The Shed wants to look like a spaceport. Even in von Hantelmann’s taxonomy of ritual spaces, we have raced backward rather than forward—not to the theater, not to the museum, but all the way back to the reverence-inducing, hugely capitalized cathedral. A thousand essays on inclusivity won’t change that. They won’t erase the Shed’s position in a development scheme that benefits the wealthy.
Praise ABC For Booting Roseanne, But It Had A Reboot Problem Before It Had A Problem
It is not new information that Roseanne Barr makes racist, Islamophobic and misogynistic statements and is happy to peddle all manner of dangerous conspiracy theories. ABC knew this when it greenlighted the “Roseanne” reboot. ABC knew this when it quickly renewed the reboot for a second season, buoyed, no doubt, by the show’s strong ratings.
A Brief History Of Ink
“Although historically ubiquitous and seemingly omnipresent, ink is anything but simple. … On a basic material level, inks consist of two components: colour and a way for that colour to attach itself to its intended surface, be it papyrus, parchment or paper. But the way that those elements combine, and the ingredients used to make them, offer a variety of permutations, proving ink to be one of the most curious and complex objects in human history.” Lydia Pine chooses half a dozen different inks from across the centuries to tell the story.
How A Top Pianist, Toppled By Disease, Became One Of The UK’s Best Teachers
This was the beginning of the end of her performing career. However, far from sinking into despondency and brooding on fate’s cruel hand, Fisher reinvented herself as a piano teacher. And, over the past four decades, she has built up a reputation as one of the best in the business, dedicating herself to the advancement of pianists, many of whom are now enjoying the sort of career for which she herself was once destined.
The Invention Of The Mid-Life Crisis
“The midlife crisis was invented in London in 1957. That’s when a 40-year-old Canadian named Elliott Jaques stood before a meeting of the British Psycho-Analytical Society and read aloud from a paper he’d written. Addressing about a hundred attendees, Jaques claimed that people in their mid-30s typically experience a depressive period lasting several years. … In ordinary people symptoms could include religious awakenings, promiscuity, a sudden inability to enjoy life, ‘hypochondriacal concern over health and appearance,’ and ‘compulsive attempts’ to remain young.”
Kaywin Feldman: The Most Challenging Time To Be An Arts Leader
“In my 25-year career as a museum director, I have not seen a more challenging time to be an arts leader; the national and global political climates have created a situation in which our essential principles are under attack. It is not appropriate for a public museum to take positions in partisan politics. We must, however, stand up for what we believe in and defend our values.”
Magazine Puff Pieces Aren’t ‘Puff’ Anymore – Now They’re ‘Power Pieces’
“One hundred years after the puff piece floated into our consciousness, it is being swept aside by a new kind of celebrity profile, developed within a newly engaged culture. It may be no less calculating than its predecessor, but its purpose is the opposite. Rather than meaning nothing, it means everything. The power piece positions itself as the celebrity profile as activism, and sometimes it even succeeds.”
Marrying Dance With Animation And Movie
Robert Lepage has returned to filmmaker Norman McLaren for his latest project Frame by Frame, teaming up with the National Ballet of Canada and the National Film Board to create a multimedia dance production that marries ballet and abstract film animation in hopes of pushing the boundaries of ballet for our technological era. The ballet took four years to make and cost $1.4 million.
Why Weren’t This Literary Agency’s Clients Getting Paid? Because Its Accountant Stole $3.4 Million
“Darin Webb, 47, faces 20 years in jail on wire-fraud charges for embezzling $3.4 million from storied Manhattan agency Donadio & Olson, according to a recently unsealed federal criminal complaint.” The agency represents among others, Chuck Palahniuk and the estates of Mario Puzo and Studs Terkel.
Will Doing Away With Some Classic College Majors Make Education Better… Or Much Worse?
“The world now changes at warp speed. Colleges move glacially. By the time they’ve assembled a new cluster of practical concentrations, an even newer cluster may be called for, and a set of job-specific skills picked up today may be obsolete less than a decade down the road. The idea of college as instantaneously responsive to employers’ evolving needs is a bit of a fantasy.
Moroccan B-Boys Make Break Dancing Their Own
“In Morocco, where state funding and institutions for the arts is scarce, break dancing has empowered young people to make their own entertainment since its arrival in the 1980s. … While protesters and outspoken artists were targets, dancers flew under the radar because they were seen as apolitical. When a second generation of Moroccan B-boy crews emerged in the early 2000s, their art really began to flourish.” (photo journal)
Could A Classical Music Talent Show Become A TV Hit? (Well, It Worked In Hungary)
“Virtuosos is a talent contest which already has a track record of attracting a mass viewership – in its native Hungary. It was started in 2014 by entrepreneur Mariann Peller, … with impressive results: the show’s fourth series has been reaching audiences of over 700,000 per episode, with the 2017 final not far short of the million viewer mark – nearly one in ten of the country’s population, which is comparable to the reach in the UK of mass market talent shows like The X Factor or Britain’s Got Talent.” Now Peller is going to try bringing the show to Great Britain and the U.S. – with no less than Plácido Domingo signing on to be a guest judge.
‘It’s The Most Gorgeous, Loveliest Thing You Can Possibly Hear”: Charles Wuorinen On His Opera ‘Brokeback Mountain’
Okay, he was being a bit facetious, but he said that and a whole lot more to reporter Tim Teeman for an extended feature on the genesis of the opera from the hit film and E. Annie Proulx novella and on its upcoming production at New York City Opera.
Exodus From Board Of Chicago’s Black History Museum
“Chance the Rapper and his father, Ken Bennett, are among seven trustees who have resigned from the board of the DuSable Museum of African American History … The group of seven represents one-third of the museum’s board.”
Emperor Constantine’s Giant Finger Found In The Louvre
“A bronze index finger in the Louvre, which was initially believed to be a toe, has been revealed to be the index finger of a colossal bronze statue of Emperor Constantine in the Musei Capitolini in Rome. Fragments of the 12m-high, early fourth-century bronze statue of Emperor Constantine are among the most valuable bronzes in the Capitolini’s collection.”
Stratford Festival Cancels Opening Night Following Bomb Threat
“Just half an hour before the sold-out opening night performance of The Tempest was set to begin, police officers asked the hundreds of well-dressed patrons to immediately evacuate the theatre, telling them to go as far from the building as the Avon River and Water Street.”
Ratmansky Reconstructs The Original Steps Of Petipa’s ‘Harlequinade’
Marius Petipa created the commedia dell’arte-themed ballet in 1900, and it remained in repertory in St. Petersburg for almost 30 years; when later versions were choreographed by Lopukhov, Gusev, and Balanchine, the actual movement was a combination of steps passed down orally and newly created in Petipa’s idiom. For American Ballet Theater, Alexei Ratmansky went back to the Stepanov notation of the Petipa original made when it was new – and what he discovered was a surprise.
Mary Ellyn Hutton, Longtime Cincinnati Post Classical Music Critic, Dead At 77
“Hutton wrote for 23 years for the Post, starting in 1984. … After the daily closed [at the end of 2007], Hutton established musicincincinnati.com, which was named ‘Best Web Site’ by the Greater Cincinnati Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.”
Broadway Finishes Another Record-Breaking Season
“A rapping Hamilton and a (quietly) rocking Boss propelled Broadway’s box office to new heights over the past year, as rising demand and even faster-rising ticket prices shattered industry records. Over all, the 67 shows that ran over the last season brought in $1.7 billion from 13.8 million patrons, according to figures released Tuesday by the Broadway League.”