“Yes, he’s a tenor, and what he does is vocal performance, and it’s strikingly compelling. But classical singers produce sound in a certain way, with a certain kind of vocal support and certain accepted wisdoms about sound and line and diction. Bostridge, by contrast, comes at singing from entirely his own direction and arrives at his own unique conclusions and results.”
Massive Change Coming To North America’s Second Largest Repertory Theatre
By the end of 2015 The Shaw Festival “will announce Jackie Maxwell’s successor as artistic director, Elaine Calder’s replacement as executive director and, if the new leaders are up to it, a concrete plan to build two brand-new theatres on a tract of land the festival purchased for $4.5-million on Dec. 30.”
Jonathan Katz Talks About The State Of State Arts Agencies
“I know that the arts are a symbol system (we can call it sensory imagery) of equal importance to literacy and numeracy. I know that if you don’t include and resource arts education as you do literacy and numeracy that a large portion of the student population will learn much less of all subject matter, and all students will not learn to their potential. But I don’t know what research substantiates this claim.”
Books A Dancer Reads
A lot of dance books tend to be about fitness or glamorize one company or one dancer. I like to read about trends so I look at writers like Selma Jeanne Cohen, who wrote “Dance as a Theatre Art” about the history of dance, and the New Yorker dance critic Arlene Croce.
Why Reselling Tickets At An Inflated Value Hurts Us All
“I am a Bollinger Bolshevik, apparently, because I believe I should have a final say in what my tickets cost, in order to manage audience expectation of the work itself, to control perceptions of my own apparent avarice and to make sure that money that is spent on me by punters reflects the cost savings I and the venue have cut corners to make, and the public subsidies the venue may have received, all of which are designed to make entry to the show viable, so that all sorts of people can come along and think I am shit together.”
André Brink, Literary Lion And Anti-Apartheid Activist, Dead At 79
“The 79-year-old author, perhaps best known for his 1979 novel A Dry White Season which focused on the death in detention of a black activist and was filmed with Marlon Brando, was a literature professor at the University of Cape Town and had just received an honorary doctorate from the Université Catholique de Louvain.”
The Debate Around The Discovery And Publication Of Harper Lee’s First Novel
“What should have been a triumphant literary discovery — a find that could significantly add to the legacy of one of the country’s most cherished authors — quickly morphed into a puzzling controversy.”
Top Posts from AJBlogs for 02.08.15
Comfort break
AJBlog: Performance MonkeyPublished 2015-02-08
About The Future…
AJBlog: Real Clear ArtsPublished 2015-02-08
Tripartite Triumph
AJBlog: DancebeatPublished 2015-02-08
Music Schools in Transition, Part II
AJBlog: State of the ArtPublished 2015-02-08
Weekend Extra: Evans Reflects On Ellington
AJBlog: RiffTidesPublished 2015-02-07
Crystal Bridges’ Great Catch: Margaret Conrads Named Director of Curatorial Affairs
AJBlog: CultureGrrlPublished 2015-02-06
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Watching The Grammys, Or Watching Twitter? Here Are A Few Live-Blog Choices
Here are but a few of the many, many, many news organization live blogs of tonight’s GRAMMY Awards. Billboard, Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, NPR, The Washington Post, Vox. And finally, the one place online to watch all of the commentary and snark and happiness and anger and fashion analysis and discussion of air kisses: Twitter’s #GRAMMYs hashtag.
But Wait: Boyhood, Not Birdman, Won The British Oscars (BAFTAs)
And in another surprise, Grand Budapest Hotel wins the most awards of the evening.
The Western Love Song Was Invented In Africa And The Middle East
“The qiyan, the singing female slaves of the Islamic world, invented the key elements of courtly love long before they were known in Europe. I have a whole shelf of books on troubadour love songs in front of me, and not one of them mentions these innovators.”
The Woman Who Runs The LA Phil
“Her key accomplishment has been to keep the Phil relevant — and prosperous — at a time when fewer people nationwide want to buy season tickets to the symphony, especially an on-demand young generation that prefers a la carte programming with a contemporary edge. Borda and Dudamel have kept the classics, but they have expanded the repertoire.” (This is the first in a week-long series of interactive stories about the Los Angeles Philharmonic.)
If You’re The Betting Type, You Might Want To Bet On ‘Birdman’ And Its Director At The Oscars
“Alejandro G. Inarritu’s dramedy won the Directors Guild of America’s 67th DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures — aka the DGA Award — on Saturday night, which, on the heels of the film winning the top prizes of the Producers Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild, suggests that it will take something of a miracle to stop the film from winning the best picture Oscar on Feb. 22.”
So, Who Won The Classical Grammys?
“The curiosity of the evening was a Best Classical Compendium Grammy for late American eccentric composer and inventor Harry Partch. Accepting the award for his recording of Partch’s Plectra & Percussion Dances, producer John Schneider noted that his musicians had to learn the composer’s daunting 43-note scale as part of their preparation.”