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Now We Know What New Orleans Without Mardi Gras Music Is

His city—our cities—aren’t empty now. They’re just pretty much shut down. There’s a social media campaign attached to the Jazz & Heritage Foundation’s new outreach efforts, asking for posts in response to the question, “Have you ever been saved by a song?” Our answer is and will be, yes. - The Daily Beast

How The Bay Area’s Hip-Hop Dance Crews Have Kept On Through COVID

"When the first COVID-19 lockdown rippled across the Bay Area last March, the dance community reeled. … But as the pandemic unfolded, the crews adapted: leveraging technology to rehearse remotely, dancing outdoors and performing via YouTube or Instagram as live events disappeared. Over the last year, they've found ways to keep dancing together, strengthening their community and confronting social...

Martin Scorsese: How Streaming Is Killing The Movie Art

Scorsese acknowledges streamers benefit his career (without Netflix there would be no “The Irishman,” and without Apple there would be no “Killers of the Flower Moon” on the way), but writes “the art of cinema is being systematically devalued, sidelined, demeaned, and reduced to its lowest common denominator” by conceptualization of films as “content.” - Harper's

Paul Ganson, Who Saved Detroit’s Orchestra Hall, Dead At 79

The Detroit Symphony's assistant principal bassoonist from 1969-2004, he had been with the orchestra one year when he launched the Save Orchestra Hall campaign, which rescued from the wrecking ball the venue that the DSO had left in 1939 and ended up returning to in 1989. A memorial statement from the orchestra said, "Paul's extraordinary impact on the DSO...

How Bang On A Can Changed Contemporary Music

These days, Bang is a sprawling artistic conglomerate, with an annual budget of $2 million to $2.5 million, a dedicated record label, a virtuoso chamber ensemble (the Bang on a Can All-Stars) to carry its branding internationally, an active commissioning program, a summer residency and a distinctive performance format — the new-music marathon concert — that is practically a...

Hollywood’s Hottest Young Director Is A Chinese Woman Who Makes Westerns

Chloé Zhao came to L.A. from Beijing to finish high school and go to college, got a poli-sci degree from Mount Holyoke, went to NYU film school, and ended up making three feature films at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. One of those caught the eye of Frances McDormand — and now Nomadland is a major Oscar contender, Zhao...

Indianapolis Museum Staff Demand CEO Resign Over Job Posting

A group of 85 Newfields employees and members of the Board of Governors released a public letter Tuesday that calls for president Charles Venable to step down after the arts campus apologized for the wording in its job description for a new director. - Indianapolis Star

What Better Use For An Empty IKEA Store Than As An Arts Center?

That's what could happen in the English city of Coventry: the Swedish furniture chain closed its store there last year, Coventry is the UK's City of Culture for 2021, and the big interior space could hold artwork that the current museum can't. The city council votes on a plan next week. - BBC

Why Disney Really Fired Gina Carano From ‘The Mandalorian’

It wasn't just because she likened being a conservative in America today to being a Jew in 1930s Germany on Instagram. "Carano had become a lightning rod among Star Wars fans and a headache for Lucasfilm, … had repeatedly been warned by those around her about her social media behavior." - The Hollywood Reporter

Opera Singers Help Long-Term COVID Patients Get Their Breath Back

"Called E.N.O. Breathe and developed by the English National Opera in collaboration with a London hospital, the six-week program offers patients customized vocal lessons: clinically proven recovery exercises, but reworked by professional singing tutors and delivered online." - The New York Times

Second City Has A Buyer

Last summer, after the pandemic led to the layoff of two-thirds of the company's staff and accusations by alumni of color of serious race issues, co-owner and executive producer Andrew Alexander resigned; in October, he put Second City up for sale. Final purchase negotiations are now reportedly underway with private equity firm ZMC, which is owned by the CEO...

San Francisco Opera Is Returning To Live Performance With A Drive-In Show

The company's first staged presentation, set for April and May, will be a 90-minute English-language adaptation of Rossini's Barber of Seville on an outdoor stage (repurposing what would have been the set for this season's opener, Fidelio) before an audience parked in cars in Marin County. The other big event will be free streams of San Francisco Opera's sold-out...

French Mayor Ordered Museums Reopened, COVID Be Damned. French Court Orders Them Closed Again

An administrative court in Montpellier ruled that Louis Aliot, mayor of Perpignan (and Marine Le Pen's number-two in the far-right party National Rally, and also her ex-partner), could not place his orders above those of President Macron, who instituted the latest lockdown. (Note, however, that we have here a far-right politician who has tweeted publicly that "culture is an...

Actress Fired From ‘The Color Purple’ After Anti-Gay Posts Loses Lawsuit

A British employment tribunal unanimously rejected Seyi Omooba's claims of breach of contract and religious discrimination, finding that "there is no breach of contract because the claimant was in prior repudiatory breach … the contract was empty because the claimant would not have played the part, and her conduct, pulling out at a late stage, had she not been...

San Francisco Opera To Return To The Stage With Drive-In Opera

“There is a certain visceral quality about being in the same location together and experiencing art. I’m giddy with anticipation at the thought of reconnecting with that important part of our lives.” - San Francisco Chronicle

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