“New technologies are shifting the balance of power in artists favor. Direct-to-fan platforms offer viral content distribution and even commerce. Discovery services such as 8tracks, Pandora and Soundcloud suggest content to their users. In turn, creators use them to reach new fans on a far more level playing field than the pre-digital era.”
The New Cultural Divide: The Curious Versus The Incurious
“Twenty-first-century economies are rewarding those who have an unquenchable desire to discover, learn and accumulate a wide range of knowledge. It’s no longer just about who or what you know, but how much you want to know.”
I Was Kim Jong Il’s Poet Laureate (Until I Wasn’t And Had To Escape)
“As a state-appointed poet laureate, Jang Jin Sung reached the pinnacle of elite life in North Korea. He spent his days writing epic poems for dictator Kim Jong Il – and overseeing inter-Korean espionage. … In 2004, having committed a minor transgression deemed treasonous by the state, he fled, becoming one of North Korea’s highest-ranking defectors.”
Stop Shaming People Who Live In Book Deserts
“Not everyone lives in a great city, not everyone lives near a great city, and not every great city is a great city for bookstores.”
Clive James, Terminally Ill, Says He’s Starting To Say Goodbye
“The 74-year-old, who has leukaemia and emphysema, has written of having ‘lungs of dust’ in his most recent work, Sentenced To Life.” He told BBC Radio 4, “But the trick is not to overdo it. As my friend PJ O’Rourke told me, ‘you’re going to have to soft pedal this death door stuff, Clive, because people are going to get impatient.'”
An Algorithm That Turns Books Into Music
“The text of a novel — with the first experiments including To Kill a Mockingbird and Alice in Wonderland — is segmented into four parts, the octaves determined by the “joy and sadness densities,” and the length of notes set by the density of those emotions. These emotions in turn are determined by a database of words linked to eight different sentiments, including joy, anticipation, anger, disgust, trust, fear, surprise, and sadness.”
Students, Professors, Alumni Sue Cooper Union For “Mismanagement”
The lawsuit charges that trustees “undermined the financial health” of the school when they “built an extravagant new academic building that the school could not afford.” In addition, it alleges that “the Trustees compounded the impact of this mistake by squandering the endowment through investments in risky hedge funds.”
Where Physics Meets Dance – Yale Offers A Course
“In the studio work, we explore the effects of physical forces on our bodies and use the scientific concepts as points of departure for creating choreographic studies.”
Opera Cinemacasts Aren’t Raising Interest In Art Form: Survey
“The investigation found that, after seeing an opera at the cinema, around 75% of participants reported feeling no different about attending a live production, with around 10% feeling less motivated. … It [also] revealed that around 80% of cinema opera attendees were more than 60 years old, which was slightly older than the average age of live opera-goers.”
Mandela Bio-Opera Closes After Three Shows For Lack Of Funds
The lead producer of Madiba: The African Opera, who is Nelson Mandela’s grand-nephew, says that the R2.86 million [$2.73 million] awarded by South Africa’s national lottery was not enough to pay the large cast and crew for the full five-show premiere run in Pretoria, let alone the planned national tour.
‘Fifty Shades Of Grey’ Is Really A Self-Help Book (#AcademicsOverthinkingPopCulture)
Sociologist Eva Illouz argues “that EL James’s novels are ‘a gothic romance adapted to modern times in which sexuality is both a source of division between men and women and a site to orchestrate their reconciliation’, and that their graphic descriptions of bondage, discipline and sadomasochism are ‘as much a cultural fantasy as a sexual one, serving as a guide to a happier romantic life’.”
All-Female ‘Henry IV’ Coming From Donmar Warehouse
“Harriet Walter is to follow up playing Brutus in Julius Caesar by taking on Henry IV in the second of a trilogy of all-female Shakespeare productions staged by the Donmar Warehouse [in London].”
Amazon UK And Hachette Ramp Up Battle Over E-Book Profits
“The dispute has also dragged in JK Rowling and the best-selling American writer James Patterson, and broke into the open on Friday, when the world’s largest bookseller started turning the thumbscrew on the French-owned publisher.”
Do We Really Have To Shut Down? Ask Musicians Of Wisconsin’s Green Bay Symphony
“Members of the Green Bay Symphony Orchestra will talk among themselves in coming weeks to determine whether there’s any way to keep the 100-year-old organization alive beyond next season. At least two of the 70-plus musicians disagree with executive director Dan Linssen’s claim that orchestra can’t survive beyond next season.”
Violinists Forbidden To Board Flight With Their Instruments – And Turn (Of Course) To Social Media
Indianapolis Symphony concertmaster Zach DePue and colleague Nick Kendall, two-thirds of the group Time for Three, were denied boarding on a US Airways Express flight out of Charlotte after flight staff refused to allow them to bring their instruments as carry-ons. Left on the tarmac, they made a video and posted it to YouTube; naturally it went viral.
Boston Ballet Names New Executive Director
Meredith (Max) Hodges “succeeds Barry Hughson, who left the company in January to become executive director of the National Ballet of Canada. Hodges is currently executive director of Gallim Dance, a New York-based contemporary dance company.”
River Phoenix’s Last Film Will Finally Be Released After More Than Twenty Years
“[He] was just 23 when he died of a drug overdose. At the time, he was about 80 percent through the arduous production of Dark Blood … [The film’s producers] released a trailer today, confirming that the film will, over two decades after its production, finally see a release.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 05.27.14
How Many Museums Is Too Many?
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts | Published 2014-05-28
A Mexican Composer Whose Time Will Come
AJBlog: Unanswered Question | Published 2014-05-27
Herb Jeffries, Singer
AJBlog: RiffTides | Published 2014-05-28
Offshoring Hollywood Musicians
AJBlog: CultureCrash | Published 2014-05-27
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Opera’s Chubbygate: One Critic Recants (Sort Of)
Richard Morrison of Britain’s The Times: “The first responsibility of all reviewers is of course to tell the truth as they perceive it to their readers, not to avoid bruising the egos of performers. … Sometimes, however, critics – and indeed all journalists, bloggers and tweeters – need a reminder of how much their words can hurt and how carefully they should be used.”
Discounted Registration Ends Friday
The Americans for the Arts Annual Convention in Nashville this June 13-15 is your opportunity to learn from and network with more than 1,000 arts professionals from across the country.
The Anxiety Of Paris, Captured In A Single Department Store’s Renovation
“Does Paris risk being ‘frozen in formaldehyde’? The French capital’s strict historic building preservation has come under fire this month, after a major revamp of a Parisian landmark was shot down by the courts.”
The Dark Room Where Contemporary African-American Poetry Was Incubated
“Distressed that they had never met an African-American literary lion of [James] Baldwin’s stature, the poets, Thomas Sayers Ellis and Sharan Strange, hatched a plan: They would bring young black writers and artists together to read their work aloud, to bond with mentors and to foster the sort of comradeship that had nurtured many a cultural movement.”
Is The Philadelphia Orchestra Feuding With Its Summer Venue In The City’s Fairmount Park?
“Ever since 1976, when the orchestra moved into the Mann Center (then known as the Robin Hood Dell West), the two have played well together in Fairmount Park to establish a lively presence for orchestral music. But the post-bankruptcy Philadelphia Orchestra seems less concerned about sharp elbows.”
New £150K Award For English Regional Theatre Endowed By Actual Medieval Guild
“The Clothworkers’ Company is one of London’s younger livery companies, being less than 600 years old, and created to secure the welfare of the cloth industry. The company created its charitable foundation in 1977 and since then it has given away more than £100m … Theatre has never appeared in its portfolio before.”
Molding Stars At The School Of American Ballet
“How does a teenager turn into a cowboy at the School of American Ballet? It’s all in the chest. …’You’ve got to strut that girl around,’ [faculty member Susan] Pilarre said. ‘Just puff up, Chris. Blow up. Mr. B used to say, ‘Stuffed turkey on Thanksgiving.””