Yearly Archives: 2021
Dudamel Isn’t Known For Conducting Opera. Will That Be A Problem As Music Director...
Almost all his renown has come from his exhilarating performances with symphony orchestras. Does lacking operatic experience matter in landing an important opera post?...
Here’s A Landmark For A Growing Company: Indianapolis Ballet Hires Its First Executive Director
"More than three years after its 2018 debut, the professional company … announced April 6 that longtime Indianapolis arts leader Don Steffy will take...
Make Room For Theatre Visionaries
Lacking in visionary leaders? Absolutely not. They're just blocked from the table by their status as a young person, or as a queer person,...
Anthropology Museums Start Reckoning: What To Do With Bones Of Enslaved Africans In Their...
It started last summer with the Morton Cranial Collection at Penn, spread to Harvard's Peabody and Warren Museums, and, in recent weeks, has come...
Preparing To Resume
"I think part of the answer is going to be for arts organizations to look in the mirror and ask themselves, “What really was...
The Rise And Fall Of ‘Florida Man’, Once The Internet’s Favorite Laughingstock
Tyler Gillespie, author of The Thing About Florida: Exploring a Misunderstood State and Florida Man: Poems, traces the course of this icon of the...
Why Did Scott Rudin Step Back From Broadway? Maybe Not Just Because He’d Seen...
The key seems to have been Rudin's high-profile, high-stakes production of The Music Man, set to start previews in December. While some of the...
At The RSC, ‘The Winter’s Tale’ Is Finally Coming Together After Two False Starts
The COVID lockdown hit Britain just days before this production was to open and put the company's entire operations on hold; the show was...
Has NPR Recovered From COVID Cutbacks? ‘Not Completely’, Says CEO
"NPR cut spending in areas including staff and executive pay to offset a decline in revenue spurred by the pandemic, particularly in corporate sponsorship....
Two Senior Staffers Quit MOCA In L.A. Over ‘Hostile Environment’ And Resistance To Diversity...
One of the departing execs, the director of human resources, left over conflict with his boss, the deputy director, and alleged retaliation which he...
The Cutting Edge In Breathing Therapy For Recovering COVID Patients? Opera Singing
Last June, English National Opera and a branch of the NHS launched ENO Breathe, a program that offers what are basically online voice lessons...
Beijing, Hong Kong, The Streisand Effect, And The Oscar For Best Documentary Short
" Hammer is bemused at the lengths to which China has gone to stop its citizens catching even a brief glimpse of his latest...
Creating A Practice Of Public Philosophy
Public philosophy isn’t simply popularizing philosophical ideas (though it typically involves that). It is more often a matter of instigating a kind of thinking,...
Does A “Big” Book Equal A Necessary Book?
"In the marketplace of books, it can be hard to find that next, necessary book. I keep a list of what to read next...
What Should We Expect From Artificial Intelligence?
Human consciousness depends on a body that developed through evolution. If we want to create AI that is conscious in the same way we...
Gen Z’s Say Movies, TV Are Fifth On Their Entertainment Preferences
About 26% of Gen Z said video games are their top entertainment activity, and 87% of those in the age bracket said they play...
This Year’s Oscars — Disaster In The Making?
There may be fundamental problems with the way the Academy Awards connect with contemporary Hollywood films and their audiences. “For some time the movies...
Jazmin Morales Talks About Being an “Intrapreneur”
The Assistant Director of the Colburn School’s Center for Innovation and Community Impact shares the impact of Colburn’s EDI initiatives and strategies on being...
A Soldier’s Tale for Today
The pertinence of A Soldier’s Tale today is self-evident. It is a COVID diversion: compact, flexible, rejecting Romantic symphonic upholstery in favor of a...
How The Republican Party Buys Books In Bulk To Boost Its Candidates (And Get...
Four party-affiliated organizations, including the Republican National Committee, collectively spent more than $1 million during the past election cycle mass-purchasing books written by GOP...
Composer Wayne Peterson, 93 — Was At The Center Of A Pulitzer Prize Controversy
For 30 years, Mr. Peterson had been a composer, pianist and professor at San Francisco State University, respected by most musicians who knew his...
On What It Takes To Be A Ballerina
“We dancers bonk up against the insanity of pining after someone else’s pair of legs day after day, but with age and maturity and...
Choreographer Liam Scarlett, 35
He was a star British choreographer who staged a prodigious number of works and was assured a major international career. But "after allegations of...
The Dueling Bob Dylan Bios By Authors Who Hate Each Other
“It’s not really polite to tell other writers they’re bad writers, because they tend to fling it back to you. In response, I would...
Would It Kill Spotify To Pay Musicians A Penny Per Stream?
And would a penny per stream be a little more fair? After all, "Spotify increasing royalties to a penny per stream would send a...
