“[The producer’s] goal is worthwhile and her cadres of singers and musicians, winningly charismatic, which makes the seemingly insurmountable obstacles she faces in producing just one performance all the more dismaying. Sara needs government approval to stage her event, but the central premise of the performance – female soloists – is illegal.”
How You Perceive The World – Have We Been Thinking About This The Wrong Way?
“There is an external world, and it is full of things: tables, crocodiles, textures, etc. These things and this world exist whether I like it or not: their existence is independent of my beliefs, opinions, or preferences, and hence we say that such an existence — or, to use the technical term, such an ontology — is objective. There is also a subjective world, and it consists of internal states of mind. Such states are not ontologically objective, but subjective: they depend for their existence on the person who has them.”
The Last Living Bohemian At The Chelsea Hotel Tells All
“Paramount among them is Gerald Busby, composer, pianist, author of one of the great modern dance scores (Paul Taylor’s Runes), H.I.V. survivor, and also, at one time, as he confides openly, a crack addict. In his tiny studio apartment, complete with piano, at the hotel … on a good morning you can still find him holding forth on art, life, music, Robert Altman, Virgil Thomson, the crack epidemic, and the many uses of hotel (and human) adversity.”
California Museums Have To Get Creative With Water As Drought Enters Its Fourth Year
“Turning off the fountains alone saves nearly 2,500 gallons a day. The Getty said it has reduced the amount of water it uses by 55% since the Getty Center opened in 1997.”
Genteel Old Savannah Is Developing A Hip Art District
“The idea of a vanguard arts district may seem counterintuitive in this slow-paced city of courtly manners and stately architecture, but after almost two decades, an emerging area called the Starland District may finally be hitting its stride.”
Exploring Pornography On Stage
No, we don’t mean live sex shows. This is all about a spate of recent plays about the effects that widely available porn is having on our society.
New Theatre Launches To Feature Older Actors
The company, Frontier Theatre, has been founded by James Roose-Evans, who set up the acclaimed Hampstead Theatre in 1959. “There is a huge bank of actors in their 60s, 70s and into their 80s who become invisible, particularly actresses. Their talent is being wasted. This set me thinking: ‘What can I do?’”
The Terms Of Apple’s New Music Streaming Service Dismay Recording Companies, Artists
“Apple has said that at least 71.5 percent of the revenue from the service will be paid out in royalties, but labels and music publishers will not be paid during a three-month trial — a deal that major record companies have apparently agreed to but one that has proved unpalatable to many smaller ones.”
Some Font Experiments (How Fonts Impact Us Emotionally)
“Can a font inspire empathy, or any emotion for that matter, in those who read it? Research around typography’s emotional impact has always tried to measure subjective responses. Psychologists, curious to know how a typeface makes people feel, will often ask questions like: Does Comic Sans make you feel a) happy b) sad c) enraged?”
What It Takes To Get An Arts Grant
“At this point I’d like to sincerely apologise for where this article has gone. I lured you in with some clickbait promising the dirt on arts bludgers and here we are talking about accounting. It’s boring, I know. But that’s the nasty truth about the arts. It’s a job. A valid job that contributes to the community and the economy.”
How Music Got To Be Free (A Rollicking Tale)
“Partisans of “sharing” sometimes liked to say that they were hitting back against fat-cat music executives. In fact, all they were doing was hurting musicians. The bosses continued to do very nicely, thank you.”
New Music To Sleep By (8-Hour Piece To Be Listened To From Bed)
“Sleep, an eight-hour piece which the the German-born British composer calls a “lullaby for a frenetic world,” will premier in Berlin this September. The overnight performance will go on from midnight to 8am, with audience members in beds rather than seats. It is set to be the longest single piece of classical yet written, and is scored for piano, strings, vocals and electronics.”
How Do You Merge Analog Theatre With Digital Attention? Goodman Theatre Experiments
“I want to find new ways to break down the walls of the theater and have conversations with audiences, to engage in conversations about change in Chicago.”
Pianist Paul Lewis Injured In Seagull Attack (Yes, Really)
He was leaving a rehearsal with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra when the angry bird swooped, causing Lewis to lose his balance, slip, and sprain a finger – reminding us that Scousers are not to be trifled with.
Bernini Sculpture Thought Lost Turns Up, Heads To L.A.
“The J. Paul Getty Museum has just acquired an important early sculpture by the Baroque master Bernini: a marble bust of Pope Paul V that many art historians did not believe still existed.”
The Man Who Midwifed Impressionism (As Well As Some Of America’s Great Art Collections)
Paul Durand-Ruel was the gallery owner who shepherded Renoir, Monet, Pissarro, Manet, Morisot and their peers past the haughty skepticism of the Paris art establishment – and their works into the hands of U.S. collectors. “Do not think the Americans are savages,” he once wrote. “On the contrary, they are less ignorant, less close-minded than our French collectors.”
L.A. Music Center Finds Its New Boss – At ABT
“Rachel Moore, a former dancer and the longtime top business executive of New York’s American Ballet Theatre, will be the next president and CEO of the Music Center in downtown Los Angeles.” The complex, the West Coast’s equivalent of Lincoln Center, is the home of Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Ahmanson Theater, Mark Taper Forum and Walt Disney Concert Hall.
Joffrey Ballet Gets Its First (!) Endowment
“It seems almost inconceivable that although it has been in existence since 1956, the Chicago-based Joffrey Ballet has never had an endowment, concentrating instead on making its operating budget. But a $500,000 challenge grant from the Rudolf Nureyev Dance Foundation, the match for which was exceeded by the company, has resulted in a new $1.5 million endowment for the company.”
The First MOOC? Why ‘Sesame Street’ Is Such A Powerful Educational Tool
“A new study out of the National Bureau of Economic Research suggests that the TV show is ‘the largest, and least expensive, early childhood intervention ever introduced in this country’.” How did that happen?
Anxiety Is Even Worse For You Than You Were Afraid It Was
“Anxiety, this research shows, uniquely interferes with ‘perspective-taking’ – that is, people’s capacity to put themselves in others’ shoes.The idea that anxiety impairs perspective-taking is important because it is just this sort of nervousness that crops up when an empathic connection is most sorely needed.”
The Joy Of Throwing Away An Entire 97,000-Word Novel Manuscript
Laura Dave: “The best thing I ever wrote might be in the trash. Still, I believe it’s a critical gamble. That, regardless of what is left behind, sometimes throwing out is the only way that I’ll get to the stories I was meant to write.”
This Isn’t Skateboarding, It’s Ballet On A Board
Kilian Martin “can skate upside down, hands on the ground, board on the walls. Then he’s upright, pirouetting on the board as if it’s an ice skate. Occasionally, he tips the board on its end and balances on the top edge.” (And he’s becoming a YouTube star.)
Top Posts From AJBlogs 06.17.15
Mondo Condo: Megabucks Residents at Nouvel Tower to Get Elite MoMA Privileges
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-06-17
Les Troyens
AJBlog: OperaSleuth Published 2015-06-17
Saturn Dreams of Mercury
AJBlog: Infinite Curves Published 2015-06-17
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California Arts Council Gets A Funding Bump
“The arts council will remain a speck in an overall general fund budget of about $115.3 billion. Factoring in additional revenue — a $1.1-million federal grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and $2.5 million in projected donations from Californians who pay extra for special arts-supporter license plates or give via their state income tax returns — the arts council’s budget will reach $11.9 million, its biggest budget since 2004.”
What’s It Like To Be A Juilliard Student? There’s An App For That
“The aim seems to be to share the atmosphere as Juilliard students actually experience it. No one who signs up should expect to learn how to dance or play the piano. Yet some of the episodes offer truly unusual insights into how art works.”