"'We are now where you will be in a few days,' wrote novelist Francesca Melandri in a piece for the Guardian newspaper in late March 2020. Her moving 'letter from your future' coincided with the beginning of the first pandemic wave in Italy. One year on, her words can be repeated – only this time with a more optimistic...
“I almost feel like you should know the notable recordings of a work like this,” Benjamin Grosvenor said of the sonata in a recent interview. “More than anything, it helps you understand what works and what doesn’t work. You react to some things positively and you react to some things negatively, and that fuels your imagination.” - The New...
"When different narrators take on chapters devoted to different characters’ points of view, the listener’s engagement with the book can be heightened. On the other hand, when narrators join in together, in what are often referred to as ensemble productions, the text is usurped by performance, the book disappearing into thespian clamor." - Washington Post
“Think of it like traffic. There’s the language road, there’s the music road, there’s the seeing road, there’s the images road. Language is like a superhighway; it makes the other things wait for it. It puts a stoplight on the others. But when language deteriorates a little bit — which happens at the beginning of this disease — it...
"If the postmodernism of the 1980s considered the museum to be in crisis and contemplated its “ruins,” today many see these same institutions as frustratingly intact, as bulwarks against change, citadels to be stormed. (Even ten years ago, the Left’s critique of museums was simply that they had transformed from civic sites to experiential fun houses. “The late-capitalist museum”...
French politicians, high-profile intellectuals and journalists are warning that progressive American ideas — specifically on race, gender, post-colonialism — are undermining their society. “There’s a battle to wage against an intellectual matrix from American universities,’’ warned Mr. Macron’s education minister. - The New York Times
Jerusalema is a song by South African house musician Master KG. Friends in Angola filmed themselves dancing to the hit - the moves have since been recreated the world over. From health workers to nuns to children, everyone is getting involved. - ITV
He suspects the engraver made the mistake while copying the score, and it didn’t get caught during proofreading. If Tchaikovsky noticed, there’s no indication of it in his correspondence around that time, according to Schwarm, the historian. - San Diego Union-Tribune
“The entire structure of the traditional book-to-film deal has changed. Our authors are now at the cutting edge of those deals, in the selling of their work and as producers.” - Los Angeles Times
Rauschenberg and Twombly were both southerners. Rauschenberg, who was quarter Cherokee, came from Texas, Twombly from the heart of the old Confederacy in Lexington, Virginia. The passion of their relationship is beautifully preserved in black and white photographs that Rauschenberg took on a visit to Rome in 1952. - The Guardian
There’s one metric, however, that stands out as a marker of success. Philadelphia Chamber Music Society’s virtual concerts are technically free of charge, but the pay-as-you-wish donation model has drawn real money — an average of $7,500 in donations per concert. This sum is at roughly equal to the paid ticket revenue PCMS typically collected pre-pandemic at APS for...
Honestly, will we never learn? "Americans have expressed their concerns about each new form of media through fears about children and youth. Younger Americans were supposed to be especially vulnerable to undue influence, influence that would come through direct exposure to cheap publications, movies, radio, television, and the internet. Over multiple generations, Americans tried to guide, control, or censor...
The Grammy-winning architect of modern music "is best known for designing and producing microphone preamplifiers, equalizers, compressors and mixing consoles that are sought after in the industry. His designs are staples everywhere from large production facilities to home studios, and have even been reproduced as computer plug-ins to become more accessible for all music lovers and creators." - Variety
Howard Sherman, author of a new book about the play: "It's a play that people think they know. People want to paint it as this old-fashioned love letter to the past. And that's not what it is at all." - NPR
Archaeologists "were hopeful of unearthing something of interest because the area has been occupied for more than 3,000 years. But nothing prepared them for the excitement of discovering an extended iron age settlement, with the remains of more than a dozen roundhouses dating from 400BC to 100BC – as well as an enormous Roman villa built in the late third to...
