Yep: “What instantly sets ‘MusicHeads’ apart from other jazz shows is the format: Barber converses with fellow musicians before asking them to perform musical examples solo and alongside her. In effect, we in the radio audience are eavesdropping on a dialogue among peers.”
Literary America Is Still Kind Of Obsessed With ‘The Great American Novel’
“Our obsession with the Great American Novel is perhaps evidence of the even greater truth that it’s impossible for one to exist.”
One Dancer’s Realization That His Art Was Killing The Planet
I was realizing more and more that my artistic journey was creating dramatic and lasting effects, not only on the generations to come, but on all living beings and I refused to continue down that path. I thought: “This is going exactly against the very nature of dance, which is to be ephemeral.”
Wendy Whelan Is Ready To Dance For Herself
“Being 47 years old, what can I still do, and feel potent and active and alive and challenged?” says the recently retired NY City Ballet principal. “There’s plenty out there, it’s just a matter of making it happen.”
Houston’s Museum Of Fine Arts Plans $450M Expansion
Steven Holl Architects “has re-imagined the campus’ north side as a pedestrian-friendly cultural hub with a lively landscape, two distinctive new buildings, ample underground parking and smooth circulation patterns for vehicles and people.”
Atlanta’s Woodruff Arts Center Gets Another Multimillion-Dollar Gift
“Having scored a $38 million Robert W. Woodruff Foundation grant in December, the Woodruff Arts Center announced Tuesday that it has a received a $6.6 million grant … [to fund] a new three-year program designed to better connect families and students with the arts center’s art and arts education offerings.”
The Audiobook Business Is Booming
“What used to be an inconvenient niche industry for the gung-ho (a six-CD jewel-case monstrosity, or worse, a giant box of cassettes!) has performed death-defying backflips around its wilting print counterparts in recent years. And it’s only getting better.”
Why Would Publishers Be Interested In A “Netflix For Books”?
“Movie and TV studios can count on ticket sales and advertising dollars even as they offer their content on Netflix. Musicians can still sell concert tickets even if streaming services like Spotify cannibalize CD sales. But for book publishers and authors, the main source of revenue is still selling books. So why would they agree to participate in what amounts to an always-accessible lending library with an infinite number of copies?”
The Trouble With Oscar-Bait Performances (And The Movies Surrounding Them)
Richard Brody, on Julianne Moore in Still Alice and Jennifer Aniston in Cake: “They’re virtuosi who are here misdirected to turn ballades and fantasies into drawing-room miniatures. … They play each scene with restrained and unambiguous precision, as if filling out each moment of screen time by clicking out cinemoticons. Neither actor – and neither movie – ever comes close to letting go. I don’t blame Aniston or Moore, but, rather, the Pavlovian reward system – based on false critical values – that makes such self-denying work pay off.”
When “Mein Kampf” Goes Into Public Domain, Will It Become The World’s Most Dangerous Book?
“At the end of World War Two, when the US Army seized the Nazis’ publisher Eher Verlag, rights for Mein Kampf passed to the Bavarian authorities. They ensured the book was only reprinted in Germany under special [and controlled] circumstances – but the expiration of its copyright in December 2015 has prompted fierce debate on how to curb a publishing free-for-all.”
Can Philadelphia’s Professional Symphonic Choir, About To Shut Down, Reinvent Itself?
“If leaders of the Philadelphia Singers are ready to throw in the towel, the singers themselves aren’t. A core group of members, plus assistant conductor Brian Schkeeper, says it is forming its own successor organization – a new 150-voice symphonic choir.”
Ten Neglected Literary Classics You Should Know About (Picked By The American Scholar)
“Let us simply say, then, that the following books are works we think ought to be read by more people, works that we keep coming back to but that aren’t talked about as much as we would like.”
Report: Arts Generate Billions For UK Economy
“Music, performing and visual arts, one of nine sectors included as part of the creative industries, showed a 19% increase on 2012, which is second only to product, graphic and fashion design. The new figures also show a 46% increase in the music and performing arts sector since 2008. Meanwhile, film, TV, video, radio and photography was worth £9.3 billion in 2013, a decrease of 5.2% on 2012. The sector as a whole however has increased by 13% since 2008.”
Animation Engine: CalArts Grads Generate Billions In Movie Business
“The Valencia institution, founded by Walt Disney and his brother Roy, reported that movies directed by graduates from CalArts’ animation programs generated $1.5 billion in box-office revenue in 2014.”
New Art Machines Challenge Our Notions Of Art
“New advances in technology, and of course the Internet, have led to a new kind of art machine that poses conceptual challenges even more interesting than their technical ones.”
The Arts Are An Impressive Economic Driver. Should We Be Worried That Demand For The Arts Is Falling?
“For every dollar of increased spending on artworks, $1.98 of total economic output is created. In the case of museums, every new dollar of demand creates $1.76 of gains. On the jobs side, every new publishing job created (which includes arts management software) produces a whopping 3.5 additional jobs throughout the economy, while each additional professional artist produces an average 2.9 jobs.”
Your E-Book Is Tracking What You Read. Should You Care?
“For the time being, the data being gathered concerns general patterns of behavior rather than what happens between each of us and our personal E-readers. But we have come to live with the fact that anything can be found out. Today “the information” is anonymous; tomorrow it may well be just about us. Will readers who feel guilty when they fail to finish a book now feel doubly ashamed because abandoning a novel is no longer a private but a public act?”
MoMA Is Selling One Of Its Monets
Sotheby’s will auction Les Peupliers à Giverny on Feb. 3; it’s currently expected to fetch between $13.8 million and $18.4 million. The auction house’s catalog says the painting is being sold to “benefit the acquisitions fund.”
Oxford Junior Dictionary Replaces Words About Nature With Words About Tech, Writers Kick Up A Storm
“The 28 authors, including [Margaret] Atwood, [Andrew] Motion, Michael Morpurgo and Robert Macfarlane, warn that the decision to cut around 50 words connected with nature and the countryside from the 10,000-entry [Oxford Junior Dictionary] is ‘shocking and poorly considered’ in the light of the decline in outdoor play for today’s children.”
Hip-Hop Dance Has Started Imitating Cartoon Movement (With Flesh-And-Blood People)
Animation dance is “a sub-category of popping [a hip-hop subgenre] that combines a range of skills like strobing, robotics and gliding, and claims inspiration from film animation in its use of splashy dramatic poses and jerky, freeze-frame dynamic.”
One Year After End Of Lockout, Minnesota Orchestra Is Back On Its Feet
“Orchestra Hall is a different place nowadays. Two words never heard during the lockout, ‘optimism’ and ‘collaboration,’ are now on everyone’s lips. Audiences are back, and the orchestra is playing well.”
14 Years After Storming Away, Charles Dutoit May Return To Montreal Symphony
“Charles Dutoit, who led the OSM to glory in the 1980s and 1990s only to resign in bitter circumstances in 2002, will make a comeback as a guest conductor next year if plans unfold as expected.”
Woody Allen To Make Video Series For Amazon
“Amazon has ordered a full season of the Untitled Woody Allen Project, a half-hour series written and directed by the veteran filmmaker. Episodes will be available next year on Amazon’s Prime Instant Video service in the U.S., the U.K. and Germany.”
Moviegoers Want Cheaper Tickets And Subscription Plans, Study Finds
“Beyond lowering the prices, something movie theaters are likely loathe to do, there are other incentives that could be explored. For instance, 87% of moviegoers across all demographics were attracted to some kind of subscription plan, which would allow them to pay a set fee for an unlimited number of movies.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 01.13.15
New research from the NEA
AJBlog: For What It’s Worth Published 2015-01-13
Nobody’s victims
(David Jays on “victim art” 20 years after Arlene Croce’s notorious essay)
AJBlog: Performance Monkey Published 2015-01-13
Walters’ Founding Story: Good, Except …
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2015-01-13
A triumph and a question
(Greg Sandow on the National Symphony’s big club gig)
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2015-01-13
Joe Pass’s Birthday
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-01-13
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