“Columbus conductor and clarinetist Antoine Clark wants women musicians and musicians of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds to be heard. Clark is bringing his vision to the McConnell Arts Center Chamber Orchestra’s (MACCO) 2019-20 Masterworks series, Amplified: Do More than Listen, Hear Our Voices. The focus of the series’ three concerts – Voices Past and Present, Voices of Hope and Voices of Freedom – will be on works by women composers and composers of color, all presented alongside works by major composers of the classical music canon.” – WOSU (Columbus, Ohio)
‘Involuntary’: ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ in the Age of Neurodivergence
Leon J. Hilton explores the recent production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest created by Spectrum Theatre Ensemble, a company dedicated to making theatre with and for neurodiverse artists and communities. – HowlRound
How Mike Nichols And Elaine May Met (An Oral History)
“[Paul] Sills, who directed the show, came up to him, and said, ‘Mike, I want you to meet the only other person on campus who’s as hostile as you are: Elaine May.’ She looked over Mike’s shoulder at the rave and went, ‘Ha!’ and walked off. It’s the beginning of a romantic comedy.” – Tablet
New Zealand Works To Make Maori A Mainstream Language
“New Zealand is hoping that by 2040, one million Kiwis will be able to speak basic te reo Māori, the Maori language. This ambitious goal is part of an official language strategy that sees the revival of New Zealand’s Indigenous language as a key part in national identity and reconciliation.” (audio) – Public Radio International
Is Talent Starting To Shift Away From Superstar Big Cities?
The big knowledge and tech hubs which once had such a stranglehold on attracting talent seem to be losing their allure. Many places around the country now have bundles of amenities—renovated old buildings, coffee shops and good restaurants, music venues, and not least of all, more affordable homes—that can compete with the biggest cities. In other words, the amenity gap between superstar cities and other places has closed, while the housing-price gap has widened. – CityLab
A History Of Philosophical Thought
What is real? How should one live? What government is best? Why do the good suffer and the evil prosper? Any answers can only be propositional or tentative, inviting further amplification or rebuttal. – Washington Post
Should We Rethink Plagiarism?
Academia is an honor-culture, in which recognition—in the form of citations—serves as a kind of ersatz currency. In ancient Greek, there is a word “pleonexia,” which means “grasping after more than your share.” Plagiarism norms encourage pleonectic overreach. One can see such overreach in the fact that those with perfect job-security—famous, tenured faculty—do not seem less given to touchiness about having “their” ideas surface in the work of another, unattributed. Quite the contrary. The higher one rises, the louder the call for obeisance: kiss my ring! Stigmatizing plagiarism serves those at the top. – The Point
How Are European Companies Dealing With The Racial Caricatures In Classic Ballets?
American companies have been looking hard at this problem in the past few years, especially in the annual cash cow that is Nutcracker. With ballet becoming ever more internationalized — “a performance in Moscow can be beamed to a cinema in Massachusetts” — Lyndsey Winship has a look at how dancers and choreographers in London, Paris, Moscow, and Monte Carlo are approaching the issue, from Nutcracker to the Indian temple of La Bayadère and the Ottoman pirate ship of Le Corsaire to the blackface Moor in Petrushka. – The Guardian
Long-Lost Body Of Michel De Montaigne Has ‘Probably’ Turned Up In Museum Basement
In the years after the man who invented the essay died in 1592, his remains were moved between several sites. One of those places was a convent in Bordeaux whose building now houses the Musée d’Aquitaine, where a tomb was found in the basement last year. When that tomb was opened recently, there was a coffin with “Montaigne” written on it; scientists will now analyze the wood in the coffin and the bones inside. – Yahoo! (AFP)
What’s It Like To Be An Audio Book Reader?
Reading books aloud might seem like an easy way to make money – you just sit there and read – “but I can assure you it isn’t. I narrated my own audiobook in 2014, an experience that I described at the time as being akin to an exorcism: three long days in a dark room, tripping through the minefield of my own words. All I could think was: If I’d known I was going to have to say this whole book out loud, I would have written a better one. Or maybe I wouldn’t have written one at all.” – Irish Times
Alt-Weekly Chicago Reader Will Try To Survive As A Non-Profit
The Chicago Reader is hitching onto the train of news outlets pivoting to nonprofit life, under the umbrella of the newly-founded Reader Institute for Community Journalism, set to launch in early 2020. This follows a similar pathway of the nonprofit Lenfest Institute owning the for-profit Philadelphia Inquirer. The Reader will pursue nonprofit status. – NiemanLab
Study: Small Theatre Companies Generate $584 Million Economic Impact
A new study, commissioned by the mayor’s office and released on Wednesday, finds that the city is home to 748 Off Broadway and Off Off Broadway theater organizations responsible for 3,000 jobs. But there is also quite a bit of churn: The study reveals that more than 280 theater organizations were established in the city since 2011, while more than 100 closed. – The New York Times
Report: A Crisis In Local News Threatens America’s Civic Life
While the disruption has hampered the ability of newsrooms to fully cover communities, it also has damaged political and civic life in the United States, the report says, leaving many people without access to crucial information about where they live. – The New York Times
New Global Version Of EU’s ‘European Capital of Culture’
The World Performing Arts Capitals, a joint project of the International Theatre Institute and UNESCO, “twin a major metropolis like London or New York with a smaller city or town, similar to those selected for the European Capitals of Culture, or a major city with limited budget as found in Africa, Latin America, Asia and parts of Europe.” (Another report says that the first two cities selected are Shanghai and Wrocław, Poland.) – The Stage
Walter J. Minton, Publisher Who Dared To Print ‘Lolita’, Dead At 96
As president of G.P. Putnam’s Sons, Minton published such classics as Lord of the Flies, The Godfather, and The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, and he was “among the first to recognize the potential of mass-market paperbacks … But he was perhaps best known for books that challenged the nation’s prevailing notions and legal definitions of pornography.” – The New York Times
Where’s The Stolen Gold Toilet? There Are Few Clues But Lots Of Theories
“The police are still looking for the missing john — an artwork called America by Maurizio Cattelan — but, so far, they remain empty-handed. … Six people had been arrested in connection with the theft, only to be released later without charge.” Local residents have any number of ideas about what’s happened to America, and the common thread to all of them is that no one takes the incident seriously. – The New York Times
Former Baltimore Mayor Indicted For Fraud And Tax Evasion Over Her Self-Published Children’s Books
“An 11-count federal indictment accuses Catherine Pugh of arranging fraudulent sales of her Healthy Holly books to schools, libraries and a medical system to enrich herself, promote her political career and fund her run for mayor.” – Yahoo! (AP)
Met Opera’s Credit Is — Not Downgraded, Exactly …
“The Metropolitan Opera has run small deficits for the past two years and faces rising capital expenses — including for the repair of its white travertine exterior — prompting S & P Global Ratings to announce on Wednesday that it was keeping the company’s ‘A’ credit rating but revising its outlook to negative, from stable.” – The New York Times
2019 National Book Awards Go To Susan Choi, Sarah Broom, Arthur Sze, László Krasznahorkai
Choi took the fiction prize for her novel Trust Exercise, while the nonfiction award went to Sarah M. Broom’s memoir The Yellow House. Winning the young people’s literature category was Martin W. Sandler’s 1919: The Year That Changed America; Arthur Sze’s Sight Lines took poetry honors. The award for translated literature went to author Laszlo Krasznahorkai and translator Ottilie Mulzet for Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming. – The Guardian
LA’s MoCA Is Making Admission Free. It’s Not So Easy, It Turns Out
MOCA revealed plans to go free at its annual benefit in May, a switch made possible with a $10-million gift from board President Carolyn Powers. So why did the change take eight months to make? Free, it turns out, is complicated. – Los Angeles Times
West Virginia Public Library Removes Gay Storybook; Author And Publisher Hit Back
“Prince & Knight by Daniel Haack was pulled from West Virginia’s Upshur County public library earlier this week, according to local press reports, after a local church minister called it … ‘an intentional leading of children into sin.’ … [Haack said that] anyone concerned the book could ‘turn someone gay’ should remember ‘all the gay adults who grew up only reading about straight romances.'” – The Guardian
This Year’s Classical Nominations For Grammys
Andrew Norman’s “Sustain” earned Grammy nominations in two key categories: contemporary classical composition, where composer Norman will square off against Julia Wolfe, Caroline Shaw and Wynton Marsalis, among others; and orchestral performance, where the nomination went to the Los Angeles Philharmonic and conductor Gustavo Dudamel, who performed “Sustain” as part of the orchestra’s landmark centennial season. – Los Angeles Times
The Met Museum’s New Director Is Moving It In A More Multi-Discipline, Multiethnic Direction
Says Max Hollein, “Art cannot solely be perceived in regard to its beauty and craftsmanship. You also have to evaluate it in light of its political messages. … If you have one of the greatest collections you almost have an obligation to recontextualize it in regard to the narratives it provides. I want to make sure it’s not only one voice but multiple voices.” – The New York Times
$80 Million: Chicago Storefront Theater’s Contribution To Local Economy
“What of the storefronts, those famous Chicago institutions where a full house can mean 80 people and where artists frequently toil for little or even no compensation? Can they claim a significant economic impact?” Oh yes, writes Chris Jones. – Chicago Tribune