Yearly Archives: 2021
“A Ring Of Authenticity”: Period Instruments Make An Astonishing Difference In Kent Nagano’s “Das...
"Put it this way," writes David Patrick Stearns, "in a year when Berlin, London, and much of the operatic world were abuzz over higher-profile...
How Many Stars Can Hollywood Cram Into One Movie?
More than ever before, both in blockbusters (Spider-Man: No Way Home, Eternals) and prestige pictures (Nightmare Alley, The French Dispatch), casts are being packed...
Boston’s New Mayor Has Big Plans For The Arts
"It's impossible to separate out 'arts issues' and 'arts equity' issues, from the stabilization of our communities," says Michelle Wu. Among her priorities are...
Los Angeles’s Leading Arts Institutions Will Require Audience Members To Have Booster Shots
Beginning in mid-January, audience members at all performances at the Ahmanson Theater and Mark Taper Forum, as well as those by the Philharmonic and...
Amid The Omicron Wave, Understudies Have Become The Heroes Of Broadway
As cast members test positive for the new coronavirus variant and have to isolate, these under-recognized performers — many of whom must master two...
Filmmaker Jean-Marc Vallée Dies Suddenly At 58
The director of the Oscar-nominated films Dallas Buyers Club and Wild and the series Big Little Lies and Sharp Objects, Vallée was found in...
Belgium Agrees To Return Art Looted During Colonial Period To DR Congo
"The Belgian government plans to set up an expert commission with the Democratic Republic of Congo that will determine the fate of thousands of...
Checking In With Claire Chase’s Multi-Decade Flute Project
Since 2013, she has been commissioning scores for a monumental project called “Density 2036”; when it comes to completion, in the designated year, it...
E.O. Wilson, 92, Often Referred To As Darwin’s Successor
Dr. Wilson was an eloquent and immensely influential environmentalist and was the first to determine that ants communicate mainly through the exchange of chemical...
YOLA Grand Ambitions For Music In LA
It is one of the most vivid examples of efforts by major arts organizations across the country to bring youth education programs out into...
The Landmine Field That Is Pop Christmas Music
With Christmas pop the companies are on tricky ground. As one company executive put it, the Christmas record needs “an indefinable atmosphere.” Sex is...
Arts Administrator Christopher Newton, 85
Among Newton's contributions were the development of distinctive Shaw Festival seasons, the establishment of a permanent acting ensemble and the creation of an artistic...
Identity Crisis? Universities Are “Triaging” Away Humanities
Suddenly, faculty in these departments are expected to justify why they exist and why anyone would need a degree in English. - The Baffler
NY State Tries Out A Universal Income For Artists
Creatives Rebuild New York is a new initiative that will provide monthly, no-strings-attached payments for up to 2,400 artists with financial need. A second component...
Amazon As A Grand Narrative
“The relation of Amazon to fiction, to story, is more than one of convenience, going to the core of its corporate identity,” Mark McGurl...
Yes, Movies Can Still Score: Spider-Man Breaks Box Office Record
Worldwide box office is $1.05B which makes Sony’s No. 2 film of all time, behind only Spider-Man: Far From Home ($1.13B). No Way Home is also the No. 1 title...
Does Art Really Have Role When Times Are Bad?
To Thomas Mann, the ironist was always serious in play. But does playing seriously mean playing unapologetically, letting oneself be nothing but a player?...
TokTok Is A Wildly Creative Place. But TikTokers Struggle To Grow Beyond It
What’s become clear is that the skill set that led to big-tent triumph on the app in 2019 and 2020 is, by and large,...
The World Has A Plan To Try To Save Indigenous Languages. Not The US
The U.S. has an incredibly rich heritage of Indigenous languages ranging from Anishinaabe to Cherokee, Navajo to Tewa. But they are almost all endangered, in...
Some Of The Creative People We Lost This Year
Artists, musicians, technologists, actors, innovators and more. - The New York Times
In The 80s Booksellers Took Over A Belgian Town. Now The Tourists Have Left…
A band of booksellers moved into the empty barns and transformed the place into a literary lodestone. The village of about 400 became home...
Michiko Kakutani On Joan Didion
Decades ago, she was already pointing to the startling disconnect between much of the American public and the political and media elites who “invent,...
Kaywin Feldman’s Plans For The National Gallery
“I feel like I was hired with one clear mandate from the board which, they like to say, is to put the ‘national’ back...
Watch: “Music Man” Understudy Kathy Voytko Steps In At Last Minute. Hugh Jackman Pays...
Jackman told the audience "Kathy, when she turned up at work at 12 o'clock could have played any of 8 roles. It happened to...
Painter Wayne Thiebaud, 101
Truth be told, Mr. Thiebaud was not really a Pop painter. Detractors sometimes tried to pigeonhole him as one or as an illustrator. In...