One stands back and marvels how horizons have kept expanding in the music before J.S. Bach, with modern premieres of 400-year-old works by names you’ve barely heard of — and leave you wanting more. – David Patrick Stearns
Chicago Jazz Impresario Joe Segal, 94
For more than 70 years, starting in 1947 as a student at Roosevelt University, Segal presented the world’s greatest jazz musicians in rented hovels, rundown showrooms, dilapidated hotels and, eventually, elegant clubs and concert halls. – Chicago Tribune
Five Musicians Talk About Diversity In Chicago Orchestras
One solution that all five instrumentalists opposed was changing the orchestral world’s blind audition process in which candidates try out behind curtains or screens. In a July article in the New York Times, music critic Anthony Tommasini argued that such an approach was no longer tenable and that orchestras had to take more “proactive steps” to hiring. – Chicago Sun-Times
Color-Blind Casting Is Not The Solution — We Need Color-Conscious Casting
That’s the argument being made by a growing number of nonwhite actors and observers such as critic Diep Tran: “Color-blind casting is dangerous in the same way the phrase: ‘I don’t see race’ is dangerous. It negates the very real structural hindrances that block actors of color from the same opportunities as white actors — like low pay in the theatre industry, a lack of roles that are ethnically specific that actors of color can play, and unconscious bias on the part of white theatres and casting directors.” – The Guardian
Play About Afghan Dancing Boys Withdrawn By Authors After Anger From Many Sides
“In 2017 [sic], two Americans attempted something unconventional … a musical about a subject even Afghans would consider too sensitive and unsettling — ‘bacha bazi‘ or ‘boy play’.” Turns out it was. When Diversionary Theatre, an LGBTQ company in San Diego, presented The Boy Who Danced on Air onstage, the play was well-received; when the company posted video of it online this summer and people from all over could see it, the response was not so warm. – BBC