“Awadagin Pratt, who was dismissed by executive director and CEO Mark Ernster on July 8, will continue in the role of artistic director. The competition also announced on Wednesday that Ernster resigned from his position on July 20. Board chair Jack Rouse, who had resigned on July 8, returned as chairman on July 26.”
Supertitles Are Distancing Audiences From Opera, Says Critic
Fred Plotkin: “They may bring some people to the opera house but they do not necessarily bring people closer and more intimately to opera … They distance people (who are not paying attention) from the overwhelming glory that is the combination of forces – conductor, orchestra, chorus, soloists – who do the astonishing feat of performing (without amplification) some of the most magnificent music ever written.”
Festival Un-Cancels Play By Controversial French Author
Michel Houellebecq’s “Elementary Particles “has nothing to do with Islam. But that didn’t stop [Dubrovnik] Festival organizers from removing it from the lineup when an analysis carried out by the Croatian Security and Intelligence Agency said it represented a serious security risk.” Well, they’ve changed their minds.
Michael King, 67, King Of The TV Syndicators
With his brother, he “transformed King World Productions, a modest company they inherited from their father, into a syndicator of television megahits like The Oprah Winfrey Show, Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune.”
Pilobolus Reconceives Portraiture
At the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Museum, the dance troupe and video artist Bo Gehring take the genre as far as they can from the cliché of old white guys in wigs.
Why America Is Obsessed With Spelling Bees
Over the years the Scripps Spelling Bee has become a greater part of the nation’s pop culture. Much of this can be attributed to ESPN’s quasi-sporting-event coverage of the competition, which this year began with the slam poet J.Ivy delivering a spoken-word presentation about the allure of the bee.
Second Day Of Strikes Called Off At Shakespeare’s Globe
“Tour guides had been preparing to stage a day of strike action on June 1, following previous industrial action on May 18. The guides have been seeking an increase to their pay since a pay demand was issued last November.”
Should Composers Disrupt What A ‘Song’ Means?
“For instance, Spotify, the clear leader in the streaming space, pays after 30 seconds, so an honest question is: A) Why write beyond that? And … B) Are you, in fact, screwing yourself six times over for writing a three-minute song (:30 x 6 = 3:00 song)?”
Hollywood’s Most Famous Monster-Making Guy To Retire Because, Well, CGI
“He said his work on recent fantasy Maleficent, starring Angelina Jolie, which was CGI-heavy, could have been done ‘in a garage’ and suggested studios are increasingly looking to use technology to replace handcrafted work.”
The Popular Artist Who Painted ‘The Singing Butler’ Injured His Shoulder And May Quit Painting
“The artist, who grew up in Methil, Fife, first found fame in 1989 when two of his canvases submitted to the Royal Scottish Academy sold on the first day. His work has since featured in exhibitions in Edinburgh, London and New York. He was made an OBE in 2003.”
Judy Blume’s New Novel Might Be Her Final Book
“Blume’s career spans more than 40 years of writing groundbreaking YA novels that delved deep into the minds of women, tackling intimate subjects such as teenage sex, menstruation and masturbation. But with her new novel, In the Unlikely Event, Blume has tackled a new frontier – this is her first crack at historical fiction.”
Urban Planning Via LEGO
“With the sounds of real construction—jackhammers, saws, cranes—whirring steadily in the background, the toy-sized towers were being heavily edited by visitors with less in the way of architectural bona fides.”
DVD Box Sets: Still A Thing?
“The studios owning rights to those shows are rushing to release complete collections, especially of long-running series, while consumers are still in the habit of buying them.”
Explaining Theatre To Someone Who’s Never Seen A Play
“Perhaps what we don’t talk about enough is the pleasure of theatre, how it makes us feel, and why those of us who go frequently love it so much.”
How A Twitter Campaign Changed (This Year’s) BookCon
“There were some instances where, when we were planning panels — Who’s available? Who fits with kind of the theme of this panel? — where we would definitely stop and say, ‘We need diversity included here. We have three white people; the fourth cannot be that way.'”
‘USC7’ MFA Students Respond To Dean’s Letter
“Current and former Roski faculty also issued a statement, expressing solidarity with the USC7, urging the administration to ‘honor its commitments to its students.'”
Color Collotype Printing Preserves Japan’s Heritage [VIDEO]
“Benrido has been kept alive by the Japanese government, who use this intricate printing method to ‘replicate and preserve Japan’s heritage’ by copying important cultural documents and artworks in case of natural disaster. Yamamoto, who treasures collotype, and is saddened to see its decline over the past several decades, views it as his duty to preserve the process – and Japan’s history – for the next generation.”
One Last Havana Biennial Before Cuba Opens
“Everyone knows that major shifts are inevitable once capitalism begins to flood the socialist zone. And a sense of mingled excitement and apprehension is in the air at the 12th Havana Biennial, a diffuse, gradually unfolding, monthlong series of art exhibitions that have been injected into the tissue of this majestic heirloom of a city, adding contemporary warmth to its gorgeously crumbling bones.”
Boris Eifman: What’s Missing In Today’s Ballet
Eifman is unwavering in his belief in dance as theater and spectacle and not shy about expressing his disdain of most prevailing contemporary approaches to choreography. “There is one problem in the modern arts scene, that many younger choreographers are really creating some movements just to the music. For me, ballet theater is not just about movement and music. It’s about something more; it’s about theater.”
Venezuela Is In Trouble – And Its Two Best-Known Musicians Don’t Agree On A Solution
“This Venezuelan revolution is the music story thus far of the 21st century. But now Venezuela is in trouble. The price to save El Sistema may turn out to be high, politically and morally. The answers are not clear, and the country’s two best-known classical musicians, pianist Gabriela Montero and Dudamel, once friends, are, as is much of the country, painfully divided on what to do.”
New SEC Rules Could Revolutionize Crowdfunding For Movies
“Until now, the public has been giving away millions of dollars to startup companies on sites like Kickstarter, and some of these startup companies have gone on to sell for billions, with no reward to the initial public funders. It had been difficult for the startup companies to issue equity in exchange for this funding because of the restraints of securities laws, and the fact that the public was funding these companies with nothing in return made a mockery of those laws, since it is hard to make a worse investment than just giving money away for free (or even for a Veronica Mars T-shirt).”
Report: Writers’ Incomes Are Falling (Precipitously)
“Over all, the writers’ incomes from writing have dropped 27 per cent since the last time they were surveyed, in 1998. Their average annual income from writing is now less than $13,000 and half report they are working harder than before to make the money. American and British surveys have reported similar drops.”
After 150 Years, Lewis Carroll’s “Alice In Wonderland” Is Still Influencing Children’s Literature
When Lewis Carroll finally got his story down on paper 150 years ago and published it under its now familiar title, Wonderland—a shape-shifting tale that is both a love letter to the English language and an extended metaphor for childhood—changed children’s literature forever.”
So Now Taking Instagram Images And Turning Them Into Art Is Art. A Discussion Well Worth Having
“Here, you’ve got an appropriation artist whose whole reputation is from taking images that he finds interesting and turning them into art,” Ian Ballon, an Internet copyright litigator with Greenberg Traurig, LLP told The Daily Beast. “But courts evaluate ‘fair use’ based on a multi-part balancing test and, if you change the facts just a little bit, something that looks very similar could actually be a ‘fair use.’”
St. Paul’s Ordway Center Leader To Retire After Rebuilding And Bringing Peace
Patricia Mitchell “leaves a legacy both as peacemaker and builder. In February, the Ordway opened a 1,100-seat, $42 million concert hall that was greeted with plaudits for Tim Carl’s elegant, simple architecture and its exquisite acoustics. Serving as principal home of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, it complements an adjoining 1,900-seat theater where operas, musicals and major stage shows are presented.”