Winners of the 2018 Stephen and Cynthia Rubin Institute for Music Criticism have been announced. Jennifer Gersten, a DMA candidate at Stony Brook University, was chosen by a panel of leading national music critics to receive the $10,000 Rubin Prize in Music Criticism for demonstrating outstanding promise in music criticism. Brin Solomon, an MFA candidate at New York University, was selected as runner-up and received a $1,000 award.
Why Contemporary Arts Museum Houston’s Director Resigned So Suddenly
Bill Arning: “I was feeling I wasn’t making progress, and I wasn’t getting done what I needed to get done. … I love the CAMH, I love the board, I love the Texas art community. I will support the museum in its efforts in perpetuity. [But] they need a new leader, and I need a new life.”
Meet The Syrian Expat Philharmonic Orchestra
“[The SEPO’s] roughly 75 musicians perform on traditional orchestral instruments – strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion – occasionally supplemented by instruments from Middle Eastern traditions. In the three years of the orchestra’s existence, it has performed extensively throughout Europe.” DW’s Rick Fulker speaks with the orchestra’s founder and artistic director, Raed Jazbeh.
Richard Gill, Australia’s Favorite Classical Music Educator And Conductor, Dead At 76
“Whether in concert halls or tertiary institutions, or as a guest on the popular television program Spicks and Specks, Gill was committed to the belief that music mattered to all Australians.” In addition to his tireless public education work, he co-founded and directed a major conservatory in Perth, an opera company in Melbourne, and Australia’s first period-instrument orchestra to specialize in Romantic and late-Classical works.
London “Borough Of Culture” To Get Its Own Dancers-In-Residence
London Mayor Sadiq Khan: “I am determined to ensure that all Londoners get the opportunity to experience our cultural riches regardless of their background or where they live, and to increase the level of participation in culture across London.”
So “Reality TV”? Reality Movies Are A Whole Different Animal
These films serve as a testament to the growing trend of “street casting”—using “normal” people, discovered in their natural habitats, rather than those found through casting agencies or the professional acting community. Some of the best independent films of the past few years—Sean Baker’s “The Florida Project,” Andrea Arnold’s “American Honey,” and Abdellatif Kechiche’s “Blue Is the Warmest Color”—were created this way, and they make the notion of professional acting seem altogether antiquated, particularly when the characters are part of a milieu that requires a heightened degree of specificity. Stories about subculture succeed when handled delicately, and with the willing guidance of those within it.
Virtual Reality Promises To Give You Experiences Outside Your Experience. But Can It Cultivate Empathy?
VR researchers tell us that simulations can let us see what it’s like to experience the day-to-day indignities of racist microaggression, of becoming homeless, or even of being an animal primed for butchering. The hope is that this technologically-enabled empathy will help us to become better, kinder, more understanding people. But we should be skeptical of these claims. While VR might help us to cultivate sympathy, it fails to generate true empathy.
Want To Build Your Own Banksy-Style Painting Shredder? Here’s How!
The helpful folks at Fab Lab Irbid “have provided a list of materials, a free instruction guide, and an accompanying video of their success” in fabricating a picture frame that will destroy its contents on command.
MPAA: More Than Half Of All Movies In The Past 50 Years Have Been Rated “R”
The breakdown: Since 1968, the first year of the ratings classifications, there have been 17,202 movies rated R, 5,578 rated M/GP/PG, 4,913 rated PG-13 and 1,574 rated G. Just 524 movies have been rated X or NC-17, reflecting the reluctance of exhibitors to carry those titles.
River Phoenix Died 25 Years Ago – That’s Longer Than He Was Alive
He’s now a half-forgotten legend, compared (when he is remembered) to James Dean. Reporter Karen Heller looks back and reminds us that he was an actor with extraordinary gifts (and extraordinary mishegas), arguably the most gifted member of a group of young actors who lived to become major forces in the movie business.
Maria Callas’s Legendary Film Of ‘Tosca’ Act Two Has Been Colorized
Ton Volf, the filmmaker of the new documentary Maria by Callas has colorized the famous black-and-white film clip of her 1964 performance at Covent Garden as well as film of Callas in the final scene of Norma at the Paris Opera in 1965. Michael Cooper talks to Volf about why he did it.
Institutions Around The World Offer To Help Rebuild Brazilian National Museum’s Collections
“This month, UNESCO launched an emergency mission to help the museum assess the scale of the damage and guide efforts to revive the building and its collection. Cristina Menegazzi, the UNESCO officer in charge of the project, says the museum’s displays could be reassembled with similar items donated from other museums with comparable holdings. … The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, the Royal British Columbia Museum, and the German, Italian, French, Swiss, Spanish, Argentine, Chinese, Portuguese and US embassies have pledged their support.” Indigenous communities have offered to make replacement items as well.
Big “Existential” Questions About That AI Art That Sold At Auction Last Week
Why has this become the working definition of “coming to auction”? Because, by and large, we’ve tacitly come to accept that market-leading gatekeepers are the sources that matter most in charting the history of the art market. And as the market becomes an increasingly powerful force in shaping public understanding, they also become (like it or not) the sources that matter most in charting the history of art itself.
Monday Recommendation: Bing Crosby, Continued
Gary Giddins, Bing Crosby – Swinging On A Star: The War Years 1940-1946 (Little, Brown)
Seventeen years following his initial installment, Gary Giddins continues the story of the man who absorbed and internalized early jazz values in the 1920s and became the most important popular singer in the world.
A British Screenwriter Explains Why It’s Better To Be A Producer As Well
Basically, unless a screenwriter wants to let all creative control go, the answer is to produce as well as write. And, Karla Williams says, there’s bigger issue in British media: “My work means too much to simply give it away, and with most TV commissioners, execs and producers being white, middle class men, I would be giving my baby to carers who were not best equipped to feed, love and nurture her.”
Ancient Greek Sculptures Were Gaudily Colored. So Why Do We Think They’re Supposed To Be White?
“It’s like the best-kept secret that’s not even a secret. Saying you’ve seen these sculptures when you’ve seen only the white marble is comparable to somebody coming from the beach and saying they’ve seen a whale because there was a skeleton on the beach.”
A ‘Velvet Revolution’ — Alex Ross On Claude Debussy
“Debussy accomplished something that happens very rarely, and not in every lifetime: he brought a new kind of beauty into the world. … His influence proved to be vast, not only for successive waves of twentieth-century modernists but also in jazz, in popular song, and in Hollywood. When both the severe [Pierre] Boulez and the suave Duke Ellington cite you as a precursor, you have done something singular.”