“Festival City Theatre’s Trust, which operates Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre and Studios and the King’s Theatre, saw an end-of-year profit of £180k – helped by a 40% rise in fundraising income – allowing it to meet reserve targets a year ahead of schedule. The theatres attracted 420,000 visitors overall, while the proportion of audience members drawn from the local area rose from 61% to 69%.”
Here’s How To Revitalize Classical Music, Says Wunderkind Music Director Of Louisville Orchestra
Teddy Abrams: “All major arts organizations should not only have musicians on staff but there should also be a department of composition; people who are composing for the moment. In Bach’s time there was a department of composition in every church and state office; there was a constant need for new music. … Granted that might be a huge expense. But think of the effect.”
Should Galleries Be Paying Artists Less? Five Voices From The Noisy Debate
“A Twitterstorm erupted in the US last month over the findings of survey of 8,000 art galleries based in the US, UK and Germany.” Magnus Resch recommended “that most artists should be paid only 30% of sales not the traditional 50/50 split of most galleries (superstar artists aside). It probably hasn’t helped that he divides artists into some all-too-pithy categories.”
When Disaster Strikes, Museums Call In The A-Team Of Conservation
“You’ve got a muddy 18th century chest of drawers. Who you gonna call? The American Institute for Conservation Collections Emergency Response Team, also known as AIC-CERT. Okay, it’s not quite as catchy as Ghostbusters. But for workers at cultural institutions, the AIC-CERT is a disaster relief A-Team, solving problems ranging from a a burst pipe to a tsunami.”
Is Broadway Due For A Big Market Correction Of Its Own?
“I’m not trying to tell you the sky is falling . . . I’m here to say that what goes up, must come down (or in our case, go flat), and the more we know and understand when these things happen, the more we can be prepared to overcome them, or avoid them altogether.”
Editor’s Rant About Diversity Complaints Brings Down Wrath Of The Internet
The language in Kate Gale’s piece has set off a firestorm. Discussing a complaint that AWP is not inclusive of various ethnic groups–and responding directly to a charge that the organization has been dismissive of Native Americans–Gale writes of trying to find the potential “Indian hater” in the organization. Then, speaking about issues of diversity around gender and sexuality, Gale asks, rhetorically, ” How gay is AWP?,” before stating that she feels she is “30% gay” because of “all the time with girls before I started dating guys.”
Fire Destroys Second City’s Chicago Offices
Second City CEO Andrew Alexander: “It has gutted our two levels of offices. But we’ll fix it. … The theaters are fine. The most important thing is that no one is hurt. Thank the Lord.”
Cancelled Play About Radicalisation Of British Muslim Girls Gets Lots Of Offers For Stagings
“The playwright behind Homegrown, the controversial play exploring radicalisation and jihadi brides that was shut down less than a fortnight before its opening, … has been approached by numerous figures and organisations offering to put the play back on and discussions are currently underway.”
Can You Picture Josephine Baker As A Senior Citizen?
From the Guardian archives, a visit with the toast of 1920s Paris – and decorated veteran of the French Resistance – in France they year before she died.
A Major New Dance School Rises In Los Angeles
The Kaufman school, which started classes this week, is unusual in embedding a conservatory-style bachelor of fine arts program within a private research university of some academic rigor. It’s also distinctive in curricular focus; its motto — “the New Movement” — connotes revolution, and Jody Gates speaks of “reimagining dance education for the 21st century.”
Do Neuroticism And Creativity Go Hand In Hand?
Think of it this way: Reacting to an ambiguous remark from your boss by coming up with crazy, unrealistic scenarios in which you are likely to get fired is, in a very real sense, creative.
Lost Generation: Middle-Aged Classical Musicians
“This is the art-form that reveres the aged master, but it’s no less enamoured of youth. The problem is that between charmed youth and revered old age comes the ‘awkward age’. To be musically talented and middle-aged is nowadays deemed worthy of no more than polite attention. Whereas to be musically talented and young is to be treated as a veritable god.”
Stories From The Front Lines: Women Tell Their Stories Of Abuse In The Music Industry
“Various tropes are repeated over and over again, like a riff you’ve heard too many times before: an aspiring bassist being told by a music teacher that bass is for boys, or a teenager being asked by her dubious male classmates to recite a band’s entire discography in order to prove her fan cred. The narrative gets even more disturbing and specific when you start charting the testimonials of women who pursued careers as musicians, sound engineers, executives, and journalists.”
Is “Teach For America” An Idea Whose Time Has Passed?
“As TFA’s applicant pool shrinks and recruitment dips, its critics are claiming that alumni horror stories and ideological critiques of the organization are finally starting to take their toll. TFA, on the other hand, maintains that ongoing economic recovery is impacting their recruitment by driving top-tier applicants away from teaching.”
‘Born To Run’ At 40: Bruce Springsteen And The Fading Of The American Dream
“Lost amid popular memories of kitsch – of waterbeds and pet rocks, mood rings and self-help books – is the story of a more complicated decade. The enduring sway of Born to Run isn’t just thanks to the music, which stands up strongly, four decades later. It stems also from the unique time and place in which Americans first came to know Bruce Springsteen.”
When A Snuff Film Becomes Unavoidable: Social Media And The Virginia TV Shootings
This is why Twitter and Facebook shouldn’t make video play automatically.
‘Fun Home’ Is Not Porn, And The Duke Refuseniks Know It
“He wants us to believe, in other words, that he was turned off by a handful of panels in a comic with thousands of them. Grasso’s vague word choice [in his larger argument] suggests that he knows how ridiculous this objection really is.”
How Jonathan Franzen Became America’s Leading Public Moralist
“Do you love Jonathan Franzen? Does America? Does the world? These questions sound ridiculous, but they’re the ones Franzen has been posing over the past two decades, as he has, against long odds, made himself the kind of public figure about whom they aren’t entirely ridiculous or even unusual.”
Poignant Short Stories Composed Entirely Of Example Sentences From The Dictionary
Yes, there’s a Tumblr for them – the brainchild of Jez Burrows. “The best part, though, is how existentially moving these stories become. Burrows creates recipes (where he features the aforementioned gallons of blood) and poignantly moving confessionals that turn on their head with the last sentence.”
How (And Why) I Chose My 101 Greatest Plays (And Why I Left Out ‘King Lear’)
Michael Billington: “Why do it? Why put my head on the chopping-block by writing a book hubristically entitled The 101 Greatest Plays? The answers are many and complex.”
Men’s And Women’s Brains Are Indeed Different – But Only A Little
“Two years ago, a study of the differences between male and female brains caused a storm. The researchers, based at the University of Pennsylvania, claimed to have found that, from adolescence onwards, men’s brains have more connections within each hemisphere, whereas women’s brains have more cross-connections between the hemispheres.” Well, they’ve updated their findings.
Top Posts From AJBlogs 08.26.15
Adjaye in Play? What’s Behind Worldwide Search for Obama Center’s Architect?
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-08-26
Jaki Byard And Musique du bois
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-08-26
Snapshot: Bette Davis and Bert Lahr on The Hollywood Palace
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2015-08-26
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What Ails Orchestra Thinking
“Something that became very clear to me soon after becoming Managing Director was that the apparent sense of harmony and collective excellence on-stage was not always evident in the interactions of the musicians with each other off-stage or with management.”
Finally – An App That Might Make Learning Easier
“As the system learns more about a student, it can automatically recommend the pieces of content that are most likely to help that student improve. In other words, it lifts the burden of those decisions off of the teacher.”
Why The BBC Needs To Be Saved
“When the media, communications and information industries make up nearly 8% our GDP, larger than the car and oil and gas industries put together, we need to be heard, as those industries are heard. But when I see the panel of experts who’ve been asked by the culture secretary to take a root and branch look at the BBC, I don’t see anyone who is a part of that cast and crew list. I see executives, media owners, industry gurus, all talented people – but not a single person who’s made a classic and enduring television show.”