It’s easy to dive into a classic book and after awhile get the feeling you’re reading something dull. Something… well, dumb. That may, of course be more about you and where you’re coming from than it is about the classic… – The Paris Review
Presenter Engagement
I have spoken with staff members of presenting organizations interested in community engagement who lament the fact that they are not in a position to select specific works themselves; they have to book what producing organizations are offering. Yet there are some ways in which the presenter is better positioned to support community engagement. – Doug Borwick
Getting It Backwards: The Shed’s Architects Came 1st, Its Artistic Director a Distant 2nd
When an ambitious new cultural institution chooses its architect six years before appointing an artistic director/CEO, you know its priorities are upside-down and backwards. – Lee Rosenbaum
Charity Tillemann-Dick, R.I.P.
Charity Tillemann-Dick, a coloratura soprano who suffered from pulmonary hypertension and who resumed her singing career after undergoing a double lung transplant, died this morning. – Terry Teachout
Truth Versus Lies: Suppressing The Lies From Being Heard Doesn’t Work
In On Liberty (1859), John Stuart Mill offers the most compelling defence of freedom of speech, conscience and autonomy ever written. Mill argues that the only reason to restrict speech is to prevent harm to others, such as with hate speech and incitement to violence. Otherwise, all speech must be protected. Even if we know a view is false, Mill says, it is wrong to suppress it. We avoid prejudice and dogmatism, and achieve understanding, through freely discussing and defending what we believe against contrary claims. – Aeon
Conductor Daniele Gatti And Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Settle Lawsuit Over His Firing
“After the dismissal of Daniele Gatti as Music Director of the Amsterdam based Concertgebouw Orchestra, following allegations of sexual harassment, both parties had ‘constructive consultations’ and have agreed to issue the statement below.” (The statement says nothing about Gatti’s departure as such, let alone the reason for it.) – Pizzicato
New Tolkien Biopic Disowned By Tolkien Estate
“On Tuesday morning, the estate and family of Tolkien issued a terse statement in which they announced their ‘wish to make clear that they did not approve of, authorise or participate in the making of this film'” — titled Tolkien and starring Nicholas Hoult and Lily collins as Prof. and Mrs. T. — “and that ‘they do not endorse it or its content in any way’.” – The Guardian