"A series of frescoes showing the life and death of John the Baptist in the cathedral of the Bavarian city of Augsburg have been recently dated to the first decade of the 11th century, ranking them among the oldest wall paintings in a medieval church north of the Alps." - The Art Newspaper
"If, like me, you happened to watch the documentary mere hours after hearing that statement, the Glastonbury scene took on a whole different kind of emotional meaning. All of a sudden, it wasn’t so much, “I can’t wait to get back to that,” as, “is that now gone forever?” - Chicago Tribune
Lyn Gardner: "At their best, are creative powerhouses, community hubs, a place of inspiration, succour and sanctuary. But often they come with self-perpetuating, top-down hierarchies" — not to mention burdensome running costs — "and fuel a self-importance around that building that keeps it from connecting with local networks, unknown artists, and from practices that do not conform to...
Comedian Mike Ward made a bad joke about a teenager with a disability back in 2010. The victim sued and the case is now in the Supreme Court. Many comedians are supporting Ward. "The support comes amid concern in stand-up comedy circles that it's found itself pulled into the debate around political correctness, free speech, censorship, and cancel culture....
" added a vast repertoire to his instrument and performed to packed concerts around the world. … In between classical concerts, Mr. Morel paid his bills by performing nightly at the New York jazz nightclub the Village Gate. At various times, he shared stages with pianist Erroll Garner, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and even country guitarist Chet Atkins." - The...
Harvesting data at scale makes us collectively vulnerable in ways that go beyond breaches of individual privacy. This is a new and nasty problem: even when individual rights are formally considered (e.g., via privacy consent forms), the consequences for society may be very harmful. - 3 Quarks Daily
"The texts in The Seventy-Five Pages were written in 1908, around the time Proust began working on In Search of Lost Time, which was published between 1913 and 1927. The papers were part of a collection of documents held by the late publisher Bernard de Fallois, who died in 2018." Gallimard will release the book in France on...
He was longtime critic for New York Magazine. Peter was best known as an authority on opera — his 1997 book The American Opera Singer is an essential work — but he covered every form of music-making with expertise and panache. - The Rest is Noise
Ross fell under the director's spell upon seeing Andrei Rublev in college. "The long pandemic months seemed a good time to burrow back into Tarkovsky's world. Life was moving at a neo-medieval pace, and the aesthetic of slowness was all the more welcome in an age of frantic digital scissoring. I watched the films again … I emerged...
Broadway dancer NaTonia Monét says that, even when theaters finally start up again, "you have your few Black shows that come along, but other than that, you're fighting for the one or two token roles in the cast." And (with the sole exception of Ailey) Black dance troupes, from small regional companies right up to Dance Theater of Harlem,...
"We have a total commitment to live performance. That's what we do. We're not a film company," says the director of the Annenberg Center in Philadelphia. What's more, "we really wanted to maintain work for artists as much as possible, as well as our staff, … at a time when they really didn't have a lot of options." And...
With the previous artistic director, Alexander Neef (who was shared with the Canadian Opera Co.), having left for the Paris Opera, Santa Fe decided to combine his position with that of director of artistic administration and call the resulting job "chief artistic officer." The company has now filled that job with David Lomelí, a former tenor who also has...
"Pacheco, a Juilliard-trained multi-instrumentalist who'd found success recording with his band, Pacheco y Su Charanga, sparked a musical revolution when, in 1964, he met Jerry Masucci and together, they founded Fania Records. The two started the label with $5,000, selling albums in Spanish Harlem from the trunks of their cars. Fania soon became known as the Latin Motown, home...
While the UK was in the EU, a British musician could pretty much just accept a gig and go. Now she has to apply to each member country for a separate short-term work permit, with all the embassy visits, surrendering of passports, processing fees, and delays the process requires. Pianist Joseph Middleton, one of Britain's top specialists in art...
"'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...
