“The Colored American Opera Company was born at St. Augustine’s Catholic Church – the first all-black church in the nation’s capitol – where an Italian priest invited a white Spanish-American veteran of the U.S. Marine Band … to teach a French style of Opéra Bouffe to an African-American choir. In doing so, in 1873, just a decade after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, together, they created the first American opera company – black or white – in the nation.” (podcast)
Listen To A Pipe Organ Powered By Candles
“In the video, Dutch artist Ronald van der Meijs shows his elaborate musical mechanism. Inspired by the Muller Organ housed at Grote Kerk church next to the gallery [in Haarlem], the series of pipes looks like a massive artillery weapon connected to wooden beam air ducts. The intricate system requires careful maintenance – van der Meijs changes out the candles multiple times a day as they burn.”
Is The Non-Profit Bookstore The Answer To Bookselling?
“The answer may lie with niche-filling shops like Pittsburgh’s new City of Asylum Books, part of a nascent multipurpose cultural center on the city’s North Side called Alphabet City Center. Alphabet City is a consolidated space recently acquired by City of Asylum, a nonprofit arts organization providing sanctuary and forums of expression for exiled writers of all genres from other countries, introducing many unsung voices to the Pittsburgh public through literary community events.”
A Movie About Three Black Women – Mathematicians, No Less – Is Outselling Ben Affleck And Martin Scorsese
“The success of Hidden Figures comes as debates over racial diversity and gender pay equity dominate Hollywood. And its stars have pointed to the film as proof that movies helmed by black women are not inherent commercial risks.”
Dealers Sue Getty Museum Over Antiquities Deal That Never Actually Happened
Geneva-based Phoenix Ancient Art “is seeking $77 million in damages, claiming that through years of ‘hard work, professional judgement, and extensive knowledge regarding antiquities,’ it devised a plan under which the Getty could acquire a [private] collection of antiquities.” That plan was never executed.
New York’s New Second Avenue Subway Has Already Become A Culture Destination
“There are several contenders for coolest neighborhood in New York, but the Upper East Side is usually not one of them.”
The Secret Behind Multi-Tasking (Here’s The Only Way It Works)
“Making multitasking actually work is not a matter of expanding your working memory. It’s the reverse. In order to multitask effectively, you need to decrease the amount of working memory that a task requires. And that’s where habits come in.”
Claim: Brexit Is A Huge Gift To Hollywood
“For American producers, Christmas came early,” says Adrian Wootton, head of the British Film Commission and Film London, who says he has seen a “record number” of inquiries from the U.S. “Suddenly [shooting in the U.K.] became about 20 percent cheaper.”
Harvard’s ART Institute Suspends Admissions After Education Department Review
“In an announcement last week, the Education Department listed Harvard’s ART Institute among hundreds of college and university programs across the country that did not meet federal regulations governing the amount of debt students can accrue when measured against their expected earnings.”
The Museum Of Broken Relationships (Yes, It’s A Real Thing)
“On an otherwise quiet Sunday at the [L.A.] museum in early June, an Australian man is chuckling with two middle school-aged kids over a pair of fake breasts from Serbia that the donor says her ex-boyfriend required her to wear during sex. … Around the corner, in a corridor in which objects recall loved ones who died, fell ill, or were abusive, a couple is ranking objects by their level of misery.”
Altar Cloth In Little Parish Church May Once Have Been Elizabeth I’s Dress
The evidence is circumstantial, not direct, but it’s considerable – and until now, not a single one of the Virgin Queen’s famously lavish dresses was known to have survived.
Jennifer Holliday: Were Death Threats Really Necessary When I Made A Mistake About Performing In The Inaugural?
“Holliday says it wasn’t until a Daily Beast article explicated why those in the LGBTQ community, a group that the singer credits with the success of her career, might find her decision to perform so devastating that she understood her responsibility to bow out.”
Just Ten Years Ago, Netflix Took Up Streaming Video – And Changed Everything
“‘Watch Now’ started out small with around 1,000 titles – about 1% of Netflix’s 70,000-video physical library – when it began rolling out on Jan. 16, 2007. Videos ranged from Hollywood classics like Casablanca, to cult movies, to foreign films, to mini-series – including the original 1990 BBC series of House of Cards.
The FM Radio Technology That Was Killed By One Two-Hour Lecture
As broadcasters the world over are gradually dropping traditional FM signals for digital audio, Ernie Smith tells the story of FMX, a 1980s technology that researchers and engineers were convinced would give a huge improvement in sound quality and be relatively smooth to adopt. Radio stations were gradually getting interested, until …
Wole Soyinka Has Now Fled The U.S. For Nigeria (Hoo-Boy)
The first African writer to win a Nobel, Soyinka had to sneak out of his homeland after dictator Sani Abacha confiscated his passport; he claimed asylum in the States when Abacha sentenced him to death. Though the playwright since moved back to Nigeria, he regularly took temporary gigs at American institutions. Now, in the face of you-know-what, he’s given up his green card.
Is This Velázquez Genuine Or Not? Experts Have Argued For Years, And The Ringling Museum Is Going To Settle It Once And For All
Curators at the Sarasota museum have studied this portrait of King Philip IV with an infrared camera, and they think they’ve found the evidence they need.
Sotheby’s Sues Over Another Old Master Painting It Has Found To Be Fake
The auction house filed a complaint against the collector who consigned this work, which was described as 16th-century Italian, after testing discovered pigments that didn’t exist until the 20th century. (Sotheby’s launched a similar lawsuit in October over a different canvas.)
Is Rape Charge Against Moscow’s Scrotum-Nailing Artist Actually Legit?
News broke yesterday that Pyotr Pavlensky, Russia’s most notorious protest artist, had fled the country and sought political asylum in France due to allegations of sexual assault that he says are bogus and politically motivated. Rachel Donadio looks into the situation and finds that it’s not at all so clear-cut.
Ben Franklin’s Very First Print Job Resurfaces
“The demise of young Quaker poet Aquila Rose, while surely lamentable, is virtually forgotten. But this obscure death nearly three centuries ago is arguably among the most momentous deaths in Philadelphia’s 300-plus years – not for who Rose was, but for what he precipitated.”
How Ballet Helped A Neurological Patient Regain The Ability To Walk Across A Room
Middle school student Sarah Hansen has a progressive disorder that had left her unable to take more than one or two steps without holding on to something or falling. Then she found Bonnie Schlachte’s studio, Ballet for All Kids. Schlachte usually teaches developmentally disabled kids, but she knew that, thanks to neuroplasticity, she could help Hansen. (includes video)
Simon Rattle, Beginning His London Symphony Post, Calls For A New Concert Hall
He threw his weight behind a £280 million (324 million euro, $347 million) project aimed at creating a “Centre for Music” equipped for the digital era. The plans involve building a new hall on the site of the Museum of London, which is relocating nearby, which would become the new home of the LSO.
National Book Critics Circle Finalists Announced, And There’s One Huge Snub
Zadie Smith, Michael Chabon, Louise Erdrich, Ann Patchett, Jane Mayer, Robert Pinsky, Marion Coutts, and Peter Orner are there; Margaret Atwood’s getting a lifetime achievement award – but conspicuously missing is one of 2016’s biggest successes, a National Book Award winner and Oprah pick.
Australia’s Leading Baroque Music Festival Shuts Down, Owing Performers $400,000
Brisbane Baroque was a huge hit with audiences, critics, and awards bodies (it won five Helpmann Awards including one for the best opera production in all of Australia), but musicians and creditors went months without getting paid and the festival’s executive director checked himself into a psych ward.
Artist Who Nailed His Scrotum To Red Square Flees Russia After Rape Charge, Seeks Asylum
Pyotr Pavlensky – the protest artist who not only fastened his junk to the pavement in front of the Kremlin but also physically sewed his lips together while Pussy Riot was in prison and set fire to the front door of Russia’s secret service headquarters – has fled to France with his wife and children after an accusation of sexual assault (which he says was trumped up) and a seven-hour interrogation at Moscow’s airport.