Anne Midgette: “The music isn’t the problem, it’s the way we’re offering it.” Big, inflexible institutions take away the “oxygen and funds” from the smaller organizations, she argues, which typically have a stronger vision and take more risks. Audiences, she adds, prove time and again there’s no lack of interest. “I think the only reason orchestras are struggling is that not everybody wants to go and sit in a concert hall and have that experience. It’s not that people don’t want to hear Beethoven.” – NPR
There Was One City In Renaissance Italy Where Women Artists Flourished
“Why was Bologna, the largest city in northern Italy, so receptive to women artists? … ‘A few factors include the city’s unusual political structure and the diversity of artistic patronage, from the lower-middle class up, the liberalizing presence of the university, and an already-existing tradition of accomplished women in other cultural sectors (that is, besides the visual arts).'” – Hyperallergic
What It Takes To Tour Politically-Charged Works To Places Where The Message May Not Be Welcome
“Touring with a message is not for the faint of heart. From considerations about how to market the work to concerns about safety, touring to cities where, in general, that message may not be so welcome requires companies to figure out how they’ll respond to opposition. Yet many artists find that venturing away from their typical audiences offers an unparalleled opportunity to raise awareness, spark conversations and, in the best cases, even change minds.” – Dance Magazine
How To Neutralize The Ugly Chinese Stereotypes In ‘Nutcracker”s ‘Tea’ Dance
Phil Chan And Georgina Pazcoguin have become the go-to advisors on this subject since then-NY City Ballet chief Peter Martins asked them to address it in the company’s Balanchine Nutcracker. “We’ve discovered three areas in the divertissement,” they write, “where creative questioning can help productions become more respectful to Chinese culture, while remaining faithful to the artistic visions of the past.” – Dance Magazine
A Church Service Inspired by Beyoncé, No Halo Required
“The brainchild of Rev. Yolanda Norton, a Hebrew Bible scholar and the H. Eugene Farlough Chair of Black Church Studies at San Francisco Theological Seminary, the Beyoncé Mass explores how issues of race and gender impact the lives, voices and bodies of African-American women. … [When it was first done there] in April 2018, 900 people turned out for a midweek evening church service that typically draws 50 participants at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. Days later, a YouTube video of the proceedings went viral, followed by invitations clamoring for the event to be reprised in cities from Los Angeles to Lisbon.” – The New York Times
Why We’re Attracted To Things That Creep Us Out
“There are different types of creepiness, and the array of things that creep us out ranges from dolls that are too lifelike to clowns in places where clowns should not be… The basic premise is that those who in some way fall outside of the norm put us on our guard because they are unpredictable, and it is unclear whether they pose a threat or not.” – Aeon
111 New Plays Are Premiering In America’s Bigger Theatres This Year. Here’s A Statistical Analysis
Who is being produced on our stages? What kinds of characters are appearing on our stages? And what do these plays look like in terms of form and thematic content? – Howlround
How Condé Nast (Who Was A Real Person) Invented The Glossy Magazine
“The equation of upscale readers and upscale brands with profit, projecting an aspirational image of the ideal consumer through both editorial and ads so that vulnerable readers would chase it, made Nast’s fortune many times over. His company established the template of the editor as a heroic, godlike figure casting down commandments from a print Mount Olympus, a status that continued after Nast’s death through the twentieth century.” Then, of course, came the internet and social media. – The New Republic
This Cathedral Is Building Itself A Separate Caravaggio/Rubens Wing
Next year, St. John’s Co-Cathedral in the Maltese capital, Valletta, will open a €4 million annex as a home for Caravaggio’s 1607 St. Jerome Writing and the world’s largest complete set of tapestries, which is based on a 29-piece original by Rubens depicting scenes from the life of Christ. – The Art Newspaper
Managers Of Paris’s New Concert Hall Try To Fine Its Architect €170 Million, And Architect Counter-Sues
In 2006, when plans for the Philharmonie de Paris were announced, the venue, with a flashy, futuristic design by starchitect Jean Nouvel, was supposed to open in 2013 at a cost of €173 million. By the time it actually opened in 2015, the building’s cost was €386 million. So authorities sent the architect a bill for €170 million in penalties for late delivery and overruns. Now Ateliers Jean Nouvel has gone to court, arguing that the bill is “totally disproportionate, not only in the absolute, but also relative to the sums that were actually received.” – Yahoo! (AFP)
While Many Arts Institutions Are Giving Up Oil Money, This Major Music Festival Is Raking It In
At this past summer’s Salzburg Festival, director Peter Sellars turned Mozart’s opera Idomeneo into a warning about climate change. Not even three months later, the Festival announced a big sponsorship deal with Russian fossil fuel colossus Gazprom and Austrian oil firm OMV. – The New York Times
Stella Abrera To Retire From ABT
“Ms. Abrera, 41, joined Ballet Theater in 1996. Five years later she was promoted from the corps de ballet to the rank of soloist. A serious injury in 2008 made further advancement difficult, but she fought her way back to health and was made a principal dancer in 2015. Ms. Abrera, who was promoted on the same day as Misty Copeland, became the company’s first Filipino-American principal.” – The New York Times
Liberating Stereotypes Of Indigenous Americans From Children’s Tales
“From the dull art of crafting Thanksgiving turkeys out of handprints to the bad politics of making headdresses out of turkey feathers, the point of contact between Indians and non-Indians begins and ends (for the most part) in grade school. It could be said that the primary place where Natives continue to exist for most Americans is in childhood imagination.” – The New York Times
US Army To Create New “Monuments Men” Unit To Try To Save Artifacts
The Army is forming a new unit with a similar mandate to be composed of commissioned officers of the Army Reserves who are museum directors or curators, archivists, conservators and archaeologists in addition to new recruits with those qualifications. They will be based at the Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command at Fort Bragg, N.C. – The New York Times
Studies: Acting Changes Actors’ Brains
“Until recently, this debate over whether actors literally lose themselves in their roles was largely a matter of conjecture. However, a pair of research papers in psychology published this year has provided some concrete evidence, and results suggest that actors’ sense of self is changed profoundly by their characters.” – Aeon
Recent Listening: “New” Ones By Anne Phillips And Roger Kellaway
Until recently, it may have seemed that the singer and songwriter Anne Phillips had resigned as a performer. She had not. Coincidentally, one of her colleagues on her most recent album, pianist Roger Kellaway, has a new disc of his own. – Doug Ramsey
The twenty-five record albums that changed my life (5)
After watching Leonard Bernstein’s “Bach Transmogrified” Young People’s Concert (back when I was a young person), I went to Smalltown USA’s local music store the very next day hoping to find a recording of one miraculous piece. I did, and I’ve been listening to it ever since. – Terry Teachout
Reversal: WNYC Decides Not To Cancel “New Sounds”
“It has become clear to me that John and Caryn Havlik’s work is distinct, inimitable, and intrinsically New York—and that this beloved team must stay with us. A show like New Sounds can only be produced by public radio, and specifically at NYPR,” station CEO Goli Sheikholeslami wrote in her email. – Gothamist
Who Are The Bots Watching Us (And Our Stories)?
Bots worm their way into everything, including the once much more intimate Instagram Stories. Why? To get more engagement back. (There’s a Russian “secret app” for this social media marketing tool. Truly.) “This mass viewing strategy exploits our tendency to take an interest in people who appear to take an interest in us, a phenomenon social psychologists call reciprocal liking.” – Slate