He rocketed to fame after performing at the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s wedding. “If his star was already in the ascendant before 2018, becoming the first black instrumentalist to win the BBC’s Young Musician of the Year in 2016, it has entered another stratosphere. “- The Guardian
Purchased In Fury After The Election, Literary Site The Rumpus Has Become (Occasionally) Profitable
Owner Marisa Siegel on what the last 12 months have meant for her and the site: “I feel ready to double down on the promise of writing, on the power of sharing stories, and on our ability to build bridges with language and knock down walls with words.”
The ‘Death Effect’ On Artists’ Prices Actually Happens Before They’re Dead (If They Live Long Enough)
“[A pair of research economists] say the death effect – traditionally conceived of as the price bump an artist gets after her death – is actually only observable for living artists, and only in the five years leading up to an artist’s death. In redefining the ‘death effect,’ their research helps explain rising prices for a large cohort of prominent artists reaching advanced ages.”
The Black Golden-Age Hollywood Actress Who Could Have Passed For White, But Didn’t
Fredi Washington often did pass for white, especially when traveling in the South, going into whites-only businesses and bringing things out for the likes of Duke Ellington. She often played mixed-race characters, including ones who passed or tried to pass, as in Imitation of Life (1934); she was often turned down for black roles, and when she got one, she had to wear makeup.
Former NY City Ballet Dancers Wonder If Board’s Investigation Into Peter Martins Will Be Cover-Up
Kelly Cass Boal, who was one of the first to publicly accuse Martins of physical violence, describes her interview with the lawyer leading the inquiry as more like a cross-examination than a fact-finding effort: “I felt she was uninterested in the facts, and was just trying to mess up the timeline. She asked me, ‘Why weren’t you watching the performance when he grabbed you?’ … She was trying to spin it that I wasn’t being punished.” Another dancer says the same attorney refused to allow her to record her interview or bring a witness.
Royal New Zealand Ballet Chief Patricia Barker Answers Reports Of Turmoil
“The former Pacific Northwest Ballet star and concurrent director of Grand Rapids Ballet took over RNZB last June, and although the most troubling aspects of what has been reported, such as accusations of abusive behavior and other workplace grievances, pre-date her appointment, some complaints have been directed at her.” Steve Sucato gets her side of the story.
On Being Told You Haven’t Got Talent For Something…
Howard Sherman: “There are countless ways to think, to transform, to share and to imagine and we should encourage each person to do so in their own way. Failing to do so reveals only our own limitations, not those of others.”
Big Downturn For Foreign Enrollment At American Universities
The downturn follows a decade of explosive growth in foreign student enrollment, which now tops 1 million at United States colleges and educational training programs, and supplies $39 billion in revenue. Schools in the Midwest have been particularly hard hit — many of them non-flagship public universities that had come to rely heavily on tuition from foreign students, who generally pay more than in-state students.
If The FCC Won’t Enforce Net Neutrality, These States Will
“Along with pursuing lawsuits over irregularities in the FCC process (like millions of fake citizen comments being submitted), several states are crafting their own net neutrality laws, which they will start debating as new legislative sessions commence this month. They would prohibit internet service providers from blocking or hindering access to legal online content sources, or from offering premium-bandwidth ‘fast lane’ deals to others.”
How Did Mongolia Start Producing Crops Of Gifted Young Opera Singers?
Westerners don’t think of this huge, remote, sparsely populated country as an operatic hotbed, but singers from there have started taking big prizes at competitions like Moscow’s Tchaikovsky and Cardiff’s Singer of the World. Kate Molleson went there, and traveled 1,000 miles from the capital, Ulaanbaatar, to a lake in the Gobi Desert, to find out why.
Young People Value Theatre As Much As Older Ones, Though They Do So Differently, Researchers Find
Theatre management professor Anthony Rhine looks as the results of three recent studies on engagement.
Record Producer Rick Hall, Father Of ‘Muscle Shoals Sound’, Dead At 85
By the mid-1960s, Fame Studios, the recording company Hall set up in a tiny Alabama town, had become a hotbed for pop musicians of various stripes, including the Rolling Stones, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Clarence Carter, Solomon Burke and Percy Sledge. Because of the reputation for greatness Hall had established, others continued to come calling through the decades, among them Duane Allman, Etta James, Rod Stewart and the Osmonds and more recently pop-R&B singer-songwriter Alicia Keys, alt-country group Drive-By Truckers and avant-bluegrass band the SteelDrivers.”
New York City Ballet Board Knew About Peter Martins’s Conduct For Years, Say Insiders
“Until accusations of sexual harassment and brutish behavior led to his retirement Monday, … Peter Martins reigned with impunity for nearly 30 years despite reports of inappropriate behavior and complaints about his leadership, according to several current and former company executives and dancers.”
Could Peter Martins’s Departure Change How New York City Ballet Is Run?
George Balanchine set up a uniquely concentrated model of artistic leadership at his company: he choreographed, taught, coached roles, and controlled artistic policy. Peter Martins continued that model (even if he ultimately delegated choreographing duties after his own efforts fell flat). Now that Martins has resigned, Alastair Macaulay wonders if it’s time to change that model and split Martins’s job.
Costa Book Award Winners Include Poet Who Died Last June
Helen Dunmore’s collection Inside the Wave, which took the poetry prize, is about the diagnosis and treatment of the cancer that ended her life at age 64. Other category winners are Jon McGregor’s Reservoir 13 (novel), Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine (first novel), Rebecca Stott’s In the Days of Rain (biography), and Katherine Rundell’s The Explorer (children’s literature). Each category winner receives £5,000; the Costa Book of the Year prize, worth £30,000, will be revealed on January 30.
Violinist Robert Mann, 97, Founder Of Juilliard String Quartet
“Conceived in 1946, the Juilliard quartet gave its first official performance the next year. Besides Mr. Mann, the original roster included the second violinist Robert Koff, the violist Raphael Hillyer and the cellist Arthur Winograd. Mr. Mann – for decades the quartet’s de facto spokesman, institutional memory and ‘resident spark plug,’ as the Chicago Tribune called him in 1997 – remained with the ensemble for 51 years.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 01.02.18
Docents as Engagers
Some time ago in a forum discussing community engagement, someone asked me what the role of docents should be in engagement work. It was a light bulb question for me. … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2018-01-02