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- A Dancer Who Connects A History Of Dance Through Her Body
“To watch her dance, especially to jazz music, is to watch historical distance collapse. Steps and attitudes separated by eras flow through her improvising body not as some premeditated fusion but as a single language she appears to have always known and yet is creating on the spot. The links are self-evident, unforced, authentic without a hint of the antiquarian. They’re active, present, a live circuit. The revelatory shock can make you laugh out loud.” – The New York Times
- Time To Do Away With The Idea Of The Artist As Transgressor?
“Abusers are often shielded not only by this “myth of authenticity,” but by another myth, which pervades all the performing arts, and indeed all the other arts as well. This is an age-old myth, at least as old as Romanticism. The myth is that the constraint of usual social norms and rules is bad for artists. They have to be permitted to be transgressive, to break the rules, or else their creativity will be stifled. Genius is beyond good and evil. This myth is basically false.” – LitHub
- Longtime Curtis Institute Dean Robert Fitzpatrick, 75
Mr. Fitzpatrick served as dean at Curtis from 1986 to 2009 and was dean of students and executive assistant to the director from 1980 to 1984. – Philadelphia Inquirer
- At 50 Pianist Lars Vogt Was Diagnosed With Cancer. Here’s What He’s Learned
For sure, in classical music, we have internalized particularly strongly an ideal image of ourselves—which we think we need to communicate to others— as the omnipotent magician who makes magic at the piano and whose personal life is going great as well. – Van
- Paul Meecham Named Executive Director Of The Tucson Symphony
Paul Meecham comes to the job after leading the Utah Symphony & Opera for three years and a 10-year run as CEO of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. His résumé also includes two years at the Seattle Symphony. – Tucson.com
- Increasingly — Vaccination Has Its Privilege
Come summer, the nation may become increasingly bifurcated between those who are permitted to watch sports, take classes, get their hair cut and eat barbecue with others, and those who are left behind the spike protein curtain. – The New York Times
- Revisiting TikTok Before It Was TikTok, A Long, Long Time Ago
“From 2014 to 2018, the Chinese app Musical.ly was where kids — as in, literal children and very young teenagers — would lip-sync to 15-second clips of Shawn Mendes and Bebe Rexha songs, or maybe an audio track of a funny Vine. The music played as you recorded; you could slow it down and speed it up and make cuts while filming. That was pretty much the extent of its technical features, and if it sounds like TikTok, that’s because it eventually became TikTok, after it was acquired by another Chinese tech company. But if TikTok is where all the cool kids hang out now, Musical.ly was, well, not.” – Vulture
- Research: Livestreaming Has Become A Vital Connection
“Our research has highlighted how important it is for audience members to be able to communicate with, and feel connected to, each other and the musicians performing,” said Co-author Sam Leak, lecturer in Popular Music at Middlesex. “As a performer, this finding is interesting to me not only because it impacts my livestreaming practice, but also because it could well enhance the experience of my audiences in physical venues.” – Ludwig Van
- Analyzing The 17-Year Cicadas’ ‘Grand Magic Insect Symphony’ — And Joining In
“Only the males can vibrate a section of their abdomen called the tymbals to make either phaaaaaroah drone sounds or chchchchhwhhhs noise waves, depending on the species. For any mating to happen, though, the females must respond with a quiet but audible flick of their wings, leading the males on to successive sounds only if this flick happens at exactly the right time after the male stops vibrating. The orchestration is incredibly precise,” writes David Rothenberg, who likes to take his clarinet out to a field and play along. – The New York Times
- What Our Comparisons Of Humans To Animals Say About Us
Calling a person an animal is usually a comment on their unrestrained appetites, especially for food (‘like a hungry animal’), for sex (‘they went at it like animals’), and for violence (‘they’re like wild animals’). We also have purpose-made insults comparing people to specific kinds of animal: pig, chicken, rat, cow, slug, snake, cockroach, bitch, etc. – Psyche
- Jazz Trombone Great Curtis Fuller Dead At 88
“Mr. Fuller was among the dozens of musicians to emerge from the fertile mid-century jazz scene of Detroit, where he learned to play intricate, fast-paced bebop lines on the unwieldy slide trombone. When [he] arrived in New York in the mid-1950s, he immediately became a major figure in the hard-bop movement.” He played with many of the greatest jazz bands of his era, including the Jazztet, Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, and the ensembles of Miles David, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, and Woody Shaw. – The Washington Post
- Interpol Debuts A New App To Track Stolen Art
Last week, the global crime-fighting group debuted a new app that aims to make the process of identifying and reporting stolen works as simple as swiping on a smartphone. After downloading the free app—called ID-Art—users can upload images or input keywords to search for information about specific missing objects. – Smithsonian
- Nobel Committee Was Nervous About Giving Prize To Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Fifty years on (as is the rule), documents on the deliberations for the 1970 prize have just been made public, and some committee members were genuinely concerned that awarding the Soviet dissident writer, who had already spent time in the gulag, would put him in danger. While Solzhenitsyn did win that year, he didn’t collect his medal until after he was expelled from the USSR in 1974. – The Guardian
- Archaeologists Object To Plans For New Floor For The Colosseum
Experts including Rossella Rea, the former director of the Colosseum, have raised concerns about the project’s €15m ($18.2) price tag, and claimed that the new floor will obscure views of the Colosseum’s subterranean bowels. – The Art Newspaper
- San Diego Symphony Has A New $85 Million Outdoor Venue
The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park, located on the downtown waterfront, seats up to 10,000 people and (because it’s San Diego and they can) will be used year-round. It hosts a livestream with selected orchestra members on May 21 and will have its first full orchestra concert, under music director Rafael Payaré, later this summer. – The San Diego Union-Tribune
- NPR Is Starting To Put Its Most Popular Podcasts On Traditional Radio
The traffic started out the other way, of course, with over-the-air programs being released as or adapted into podcasts. “But podcasting has turned into an incubator of sorts for new radio shows, with several now making their way to local airwaves. … Starting out as a podcast offers show creators a chance to explore and experiment while also building a following — which can help when the subject matter is inherently challenging.” – The Washington Post
- Hollywood Is Now Producing Companion Podcasts To Movies And TV Series
Why? Money, of course: to put it in business-speak, the companion podcast “offers a new way for creators to diversify IP assets.” What’s the draw? “People want to spend more time thinking and talking about the shows that they’re watching, whether they’re binge-watching it or watching it once a week,” says HBO’s director of podcasts. “It’s on their mind, and it’s a platform that really complements their watching experience.” – The Hollywood Reporter
- ‘There’s Something Going On’ — Who Will Really Be Running LA’s MOCA?
“As the Museum of Contemporary Art prepares to reopen after a historic pandemic closure, it finds itself in the midst of restructuring, moving director Klaus Biesenbach into the role of artistic director and hiring an executive director to co-run the institution with him. But The Times has spoken with more than two dozen people including current and former MOCA employees, artists, curators and executives at other museums, and the majority were skeptical of the dual leadership model. … Will the new executive director really be holding the reins at the institution, which has seen four directors in 13 years?” – Los Angeles Times
- As Broadway Prepares To Reopen, Here’s How It Will (And Won’t) Be Operating Differently
“Ticket-buyers are being told they will be required to wear face masks (although it’s not clear how changing advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention might affect that expectation). Theaters will have upgraded HVAC systems with virus-trapping filters. Most ticketing will be digital. And theaters are reserving the right to impose a variety of safety protocols” — on casts and crews as well as on audiences. “Prices, at least so far, are similar to what they were prepandemic, although premium prices are somewhat lower. … But it will be far easier to cancel or exchange tickets.” – The New York Times
- Bayreuth Festival: Christian Thielemann May Have Lost His Other Job, Too
At the beginning of this week it was announced that the conductor (who was, when he was younger, hailed as a new Herbert von Karajan) was not offered a contract renewal at the orchestra and opera house in Dresden. It turns out that his term as music director at Wagner’s own opera house in Bayreuth expired on Jan. 1, and his name and title have reportedly disappeared from the festival’s website. Bayreuth’s spokesperson says only that Thielemann has a contract as a guest conductor for one opera this summer and beyond that “there is no decision yet.” (in German; for Google Translate version, click here) – Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (DPA)
- St. Paul’s Cathedral In London Is Running Out Of Cash And Could Close
With the pandemic having cut off the revenue from tourist admissions, the landmark’s income is down by 90%. The engineer in charge of maintenance and upkeep says the 300-year-old building is “rotting” and all renovation projects have been halted; there’s little to no money for the professional choir that sings services; the Dean of the Cathedral said frankly, “If we can’t raise the resources to be able to employ the people to look after the building and pay for the heating and lighting, we would have to shut our doors.” – BBC
- Tech Versus Big Journalism
A war is on between the tech titans and a relentless generation of largely digital-native reporters looking to speak truth to power while racking up Twitter followers in the process. Depending on whom you ask, the great Tech vs. Media Standoff of 2020–21 is either a “fake fight” between “20 people and 500 other people,” all quick to take offense and thirsty for clout, or it’s a cataclysmic rift that threatens democracy or, at least, the accurate portrayal of the most important industry in the world. – New York Magazine
- SAG/AFTRA Sign First Agreement On Social Media Influencers (What Does That Mean?)
The Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists’ national board voted to adopt its first-ever agreement for influencers—personalities and performers paid to promote products and services on networks like Instagram and TikTok, plus non-networked websites. In addition, those side hustles are no longer prohibited for current members of SAG-AFTRA. – Dance Magazine
- Nicholas Kenyon’s New History Of Western Music
The book’s subtitle, New Adventures in the Western Classical Tradition, makes its soft boundaries clear. As managing director of London’s Barbican Centre, and former director of the Proms, controller of Radio 3 and music critic of the Observer – and therefore a colleague and friend to those of us in the business of classical – Kenyon has heard and programmed as much music as anyone. – The Guardian
- Companies Are Struggling To Become Data-Driven. The Toughest Part? Culture
The goal is to “invite people who have not been thinking about this topic to really think about it in their day-to-day work. It really creates the culture of control, culture of responsibility and understanding.” – Protocol
- Inside The Art NFT Boom
No one quite agrees on what this gold rush means. If you ask hard-core champions of Bitcoin — the often-libertarian “crypto natives,” as they call themselves — NFTs presage the future of digital property. They’re a glimpse at a coming day when people spend their income on digital items they can trade, resell or hoard as an investment; when government will lose its unique power to mint currency and protect property, because people will instead trust the implacable math of blockchain networks. – The New York Times
- The Sounds Of Japan’s Ancient Music, Recorded More Than A Century Ago
“Let’s set the scene. It’s February 28, 1903, and 12 musicians from the Imperial Household Orchestra are seated in front of a gramophone horn in a Tokyo hotel room. The needle slowly lowers onto a spinning blank disc and the session begins. What follows is a recording of the sound of gagaku, the oldest continuously performed orchestral music in the world that had, till then, been the reserve of Japan’s imperial court for over a thousand years. This recital is the first ever to be committed to disc, a glimpse of the past captured with a machine from the future.” – Atlas Obscura
- Do we know how changing prices affects the income-diversity of audiences?
Real care has to be taken with comparing data on prices and audience characteristics, because the prices were set in the first place as a result of local audience characteristics. There is no universal ‘demand curve’ for the arts: each company has a unique situation based on where it is. – Michael Rushton
- How A Dallas Choir Made $375,000 With An NFT “Crypto Music”
“2020 had all been about crypto art. We believe that Betty’s Notebook is the birth of crypto music. It makes music truly ‘crypto native’,” meaning the piece is designed and meant for consumption on the blockchain, instead of simply being added to it as a NFT. “You can’t have Betty’s Notebook without the blockchain.” – Dallas Morning News
- A New York Times Critic Sees His First Play Since COVID — In The Central American City He Once Fled
Jose Solís: “Theater in my hometown? ‘A lot has changed since you’ve been gone,’ said Inma López, a producer and ensemble member at Casa del Teatro Memorias. … Theater in Tegucigalpa went from the didacticism of political plays that toured colleges and high schools in the 1980s, to becoming an essential part of city life.” – The New York Times
- A Bitter New Orleans Graffiti War Over… Dan Marino?
To outsiders, street painters of all sorts might seem to be natural allies. But that’s not always the case. Rivalries and territorialism are always part of the picture. For some, street painting is meant as a gift to society; for others it’s pure rebellion; for most it’s somewhere in between. After two weeks of turf war, the wall at the corner of St. Claude Avenue and Marigny Street was the equivalent of a smoking battleground that bore the scars of Krylon combat. – New Orleans Times-Picayune
- What Goodreads Has Done To My Reading, And Why I’m Giving It Up
“Quantifying, dissecting and broadcasting our most-loved hobbies sucks the joy out of them. I find myself glancing towards the corner of the page to see how much I’ve read. … Even when absorbed in the climax of a story, one eye is always on my proximity to the end, when I’ll be able to post it all to Goodreads. … [It’s] far more performative than I have previously admitted to myself: I love reading, but I also love the feeling of people thinking I’m well read.” – The Guardian
- A Multi-Million-Dollar Trade In Fake Native American Art
We’re talking about everything from Navajo turquoise and silver to Zuni inlay. It’s a huge tourist draw and one of New Mexico’s most important industries. But today, con artists are flooding the Indian jewelry marketplace with cleverly disguised counterfeits, cheating consumers out of millions of dollars. – KRQE
- Dancer Walter Hodes @96 – How To Dance Through Life
“I think anything that you do with every particle of yourself can be wonderful, and it can make you forget the world. It’s magic. How the heck am I supposed to describe it? Something happens. It takes everything you have got. And, for that — for those brief moments that you’re dancing, you’re transported.” – The News Hour (PBS)
- Chicago’s Goodman Theatre Prepares To Live-Stream From Its Stage
“‘The whole process here is to recreate the experience for the audience,’ said [Goodman artistic director Robert] Falls. ‘The audience chooses which performance they want to see, they buy their ticket, they’re instructed to get there early to make sure that the technology is working and at 7:30 in the evening, we’re all set to go live.'” – Yahoo! (Chicago Tribune)