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Friday, April 8, 2011
current top story
New York City Opera Suspends Fall Season, Ponders Overhaul "The New York City Opera has suspended plans for next season as it takes a hard look at its business model, including exploring cheaper alternatives to its current home at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts."
The Wall Street Journal 04/08/11
publishing
When The Meanings Of Words Change "We all know that words change their meanings all the time, sometimes glacially (the prescriptivists have been fighting on behalf of the original sense of disinterested for centuries), sometimes relatively quickly (that nonplussed thing snuck up on me). But this fact raises a question (it doesn't beg the question--that means something else): How long should we hold on to a word's old meaning?"
Slate 04/08/11
music
The Canadian Prime Minister, The Opera "The timing of its arrival, just before Canadian voters go to the polls, could hardly be better. It will have its world premiere on the big screen on April 16 at 72 Cineplex theatres across Canada. An encore screening is scheduled for April 27. But take it from me, this won't be anyone's idea of a conventional Saturday afternoon at the opera."
Toronto Star 04/08/11
music
In Grammy Awards Reorg, Classical Music Loses Four "What we've lost: the overall Best Classical Album category; Best Chamber Music Performance (Best Small Ensemble Performance remains), one of the two Instrumental Soloist categories (separate awards used to be given for performances with and without orchestra; now, it will go to the Best Classical Instrumental Soloist, period), and -- hallelujah -- the Best Classical Crossover Album."
Washington Post 04/07/11
ideas
Study: Smartphones Transform The Ways People Think About Mass Transit "The point is for transit agencies to provide enough information to put riders in control of their experience and have greater choice in when and where to ride. People don't want to feel they are at the mercy of paper schedules, even if they are, and there's nothing worse than waiting for buses that may or may not be on time."
Wired 04/08/11
music
Last Year's Summer Concert Tour Season Was A Disaster. An This Year? "The importance of the summer concert season can't be overstated for artists leaning on touring revenue, as CD sales continue to fall and audiences fragment. The industry is frantically brewing up new mixtures, trying to find something for everyone."
The Wall Street Journal 04/08/11
people
The Evolution Of Simon Rattle (He's Becoming More Conservative) "I have learnt endlessly," he says. Now, "when I go back to a favorite group in America, like Philly [the Philadelphia Orchestra], they say 'Simon, just occasionally, a beat wouldn't be a bad thing--if you can remember how to do that."'
The Wall Street Journal 04/08/11
issues
Prominent UK Actors Protest Arts Funding Cuts "Sir Patrick Stewart, Penelope Wilton and Samuel West are among the stars who have signed and delivered a petition to Downing Street calling for a "coherent" arts policy. Last week, more than 200 organisations lost out on annual funding from Arts Council England."
BBC 04/08/11
theatre
Is Recorded Music So Much Worse Than Live In The Theatre? "But the increased quality of sound reproduction, coupled with reduced technical expense and higher personnel expense, have revived the argument over theaters utilizing digitized orchestras instead of the real thing for musicals."
South Florida Classical Voice 04/07/11
music
music
New York City Opera Suspends Fall Season, Ponders Overhaul "The New York City Opera has suspended plans for next season as it takes a hard look at its business model, including exploring cheaper alternatives to its current home at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts."
The Wall Street Journal 04/08/11
dance
Beijing Choreographer On Modern Dance In China Willy Tsao of BeijingDance | LDTX: "In China, one of the misconceptions is that dance is beautiful - it's about a beautiful body, a beautiful appearance. We want to see something pretty. But dance is for expression, it's not just something sugary. It can be sour, it can be healing too. We have the freedom to present different aspects."
Ottawa Citizen 04/06/11
theatre
UK Satellitte Network Sky Launches Theatre/Dance Fund "Sky has launched a £1.2million fund aimed at supporting arts organisations - including theatre and dance companies - to create new projects. The fund, called The Sky Arts Ignition Series, plans to award six arts organistations up to £200,000 each over the next three years."
The Stage (UK) 04/07/11
ideas
Revisiting The Old-Time American River Baptism "The public nature of the river baptism is what sets it apart from so many other religious rituals (especially in America, a country of believers with, paradoxically, few shared rituals). A river baptism doesn't have to be in a river; it can be in a creek, the sea, an old bathtub in the yard."
The Smart Set 04/05/11
music
BAM To Revive Legendary Production of Lully's Atys The Brooklyn Academy of Music will open its 150th anniversary season next September with a revival of Les Arts Florissants' 1987 production, a major landmark in the modern revival of French Baroque music. (Other season highlights include include a revival of
Einstein on the Beach and the final performances of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company.)
The Wall Street Journal 04/07/11
visual
Director of UAE Art Fair Fired On Sultan's Orders "The Sharjah Biennial, a sprawling art event in the United Arab Emirates that began in 1993 and is now in the midst of its 10th iteration, has been celebrated as a pioneer in bringing ambitious contemporary art to the Middle East." But the ruler of Sharjah has had the director of the fair's parent organization dismissed over a controversial piece of public sculpture.
The New York Times 04/07/11
people
Edward Bigelow, 93, Longtime New York City Ballet Dancer And Manager "Although Mr. Bigelow performed as a dancer from 1946 through the 1960s, he was also known as a versatile aide-de-camp to both Lincoln Kirstein and Balanchine, City Ballet's founders. He became an assistant to Balanchine in 1949 while still a dancer, was a production assistant from 1951 to 1977 and had the title of manager from 1978 to 1987."
The New York Times 04/08/11
ideas
What's The Best Way To Study For a Test? "Some students swear by colourful mind maps. Others go for flash cards. The most common practice is rereading notes and highlighting the relevant material.
[But it] turns out that one technique stands head and shoulders above the rest
"
New Scientist 04/07/11
music
issues
Ticket Scalpers - They're Just Agents Of The Invisible Hand "Why such disdain for scalpers? Why such pleasure at their discomfort? Economists have been pointing out for ages that tickets to events are commodities like any other and that resellers merely create a market allowing the price of such goods to reflect supply and demand."
The Wall Street Journal 04/08/11
theatre
The Joys Of Feel-Bad Theater Ben Brantley: "An acridness hung in the air during the New Group's revival of Wallace Shawn's
Marie and Bruce the other night, something I don't often experience at the theater. It was the thick, curdled aura of an audience's collective discomfort
that palpable unhappiness that arises when an audience feels utterly ill at ease with what's happening onstage."
The New York Times 04/07/11
publishing
The Strange, Fevered Power of Arthur Rimbaud "[It] is very difficult to sympathize with or even understand Rimbaud as a human being. I suspect it is impossible. His poetry will not be understood either. It isn't written for understanding."
The Smart Set 04/06/11
visual
Magical Moving Magnetic Sculptures "No, it's not sentient goo.
Gary Lee Johns, a physics PhD student at Johns Hopkins University, combined commercially available magnetic-particle-infused fluid with a variety of different metal shapes. The result? The incredible fluid sculptures you see in this video."
New Scientist 04/06/11 (includes video)
issues
The Aging Of Audiences Isn't Always A Scary Prospect "Whether they are buying music, listening to the radio, reading newspapers or watching television, media consumers are ageing even more quickly than the overall population. Rather than trying to reverse this trend by attracting younger people, many companies are attempting to profit from the [trend]." (After all, older consumers tend not to download.)
The Economist 04/07/11
media
Stock Analyst Downgrades Dish Stock After Bockbuster Video Bid "With an 8.6% same store sales decline in the third quarter of 2010, we are skeptical that the microeconomics of the more viable stores can be revamped simply by crossing-selling Dish Network or cloning Netflix's strategy."
The Hollywood Reporter 04/07/11
publishing
Rare Joint Purchase Of Kafka Letters Brings New Material To Light "The remarkable announcement this week by the Bodleian Library and the German Literary Archive at Marbach that they have agreed jointly to purchase a collection of more than 100 letters and postcards from Franz Kafka to his sister Ottla will cause great excitement amongst Kafka biographers and scholars."
The Guardian (UK) 04/07/11
publishing
Long Lost Dr. Seuss Stories To Be Published In Book Dr Seuss's art director Cathy Goldsmith was on eBay when she stumbled across a sale for tearsheets from 1950s magazines, purporting to be stories by the author, who was born Theodor Seuss Geisel in 1904. She bought the stories, and discovered that the seller, dentist Charles Cohen, was a huge collector of "Seussiana" and an avid Seuss scholar.
The Guardian (UK) 04/07/11
visual
publishing
A Small Press That Loses Money On Every Book Amazon Sells "I should be grateful that I've been given the same space as the big boys to display my covers and my reviews. I should say thank you for the sale. But I don't. Because each time I sell a book on Amazon, I lose money."
The Guardian (UK) 04/07/11
publishing
Poet Billy Collins: Radio Has Built Audience For My Poetry Collins has sold more than one million books of poetry. He says radio has been instrumental in building his audience. "Radio is such a perfect medium for the transmission of poetry, primarily because there just is the voice, there's no visual distraction," he says. But there's also the appeal of the unexpected -- it's unusual to hear poetry on the radio.
NPR 04/06/11
visual
NY Gallery Director Convicted Of Fraud "Leigh Morse, the former director of Salander-O'Reilly Galleries and once an art dealer for actor Robert De Niro, was convicted in a scheme that prosecutors said defrauded the estates of artists including painter Stuart Davis."
BusinessWeek 04/06/11
media
Proof That Chicago Counts? Chicago landed a perverse cultural honor and joined an exclusive club for which membership itself serves as a loud, international reminder that your city matters. In other words, we're about to get our butts handed to us in a great big special-effects action picture. Toasted, flattened, manhandled, banged up, blown apart, brought down."
Chicago Tribune 04/07/11
ideas
Our Brains - Who's In Charge Here? "The first lesson we learn from studying our own circuitry is shocking: most of what we do and think and feel is not under our conscious control. The vast jungles of neurons operate their own programs. The conscious you - the I that flickers to life when you wake up in the morning - is the smallest bit of what's transpiring in your brain."
The Telegraph (UK) 04/05/11
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