Such quirky, esoteric mash-ups feel less like stylistic innovations and more like branding exercises, reflecting a present in which one’s ability to market oneself is more important than mastering a craft or coming up with fresh ideas. – The Spectator
Hermitage’s Major Fabergé Show Is Full Of ‘Tawdry Fakes’, Says Art Dealer
“The explosive claim was made in an open letter to Hermitage boss Mikhail Piotrovsky by Andre Ruzhnikov, who has been buying and selling Fabergé for 40 years. In it, he accuses Piotrovsky of ‘insulting the good name of Fabergé, betraying your visitors’ trust, operating under false pretences, and destroying the authority of the museum you have been appointed to lead.'” The alleged forgeries come from the collection of an oligarch close to Vladimir Putin. – Artnet
Matthew VanBesien Talks Presenting
Matthew VanBesien, President of the University Musical Society of the University of Michigan, as he talks about the role of presenters in the arts. – Aaron Dworkin
People Are Hungry For Their Hometown Museums After This Very, Very Long Year
Is it still March 2020? What content are we watching? Who even knows? Well, your museum. The Walker Museum’s public programs manager: “People are looking to their local arts organizations for online content. Even though you can see the Berlin Philharmonic [perform online] or go to the Met programs, I think there’s still a real interest in what’s happening in our community and what’s going on locally.” – Minneapolis Star-Tribune
After The Storming Of The Capitol, Classical Music Feels More Vulnerable Than Ever
Of course, this feeling (and the lack of funding, and alarm about orchestras’ survival) started long before the pandemic, and long before the assault on the Capitol Building. But: “The trials of the past year have brought forth many of the qualities we already admired about classical music: its resilience, resistance, persistence and endurance. But permanence? I’m not so sure anymore.” – Washington Post
SOPHIE, Innovative Music Producer, Electronica Musician, And Trans Icon, 34
She died in what her team said was a “terrible accident” in Athens while celebrating the full moon. “SOPHIE was a trailblazer in almost every respect. The Scottish-born, L.A.-based producer transformed underground dance music, melding the worlds of house, techno, trance, pop and the avant-garde into something brazenly new and undeniable.” – NPR
The Dramatic Importance Of Club Dance To City Life
That’s merely one thing that’s missing right now, of course, but it is missing, and Dublin isn’t going to let people forget the joys of moving their bodies alongside so many others at dance clubs. “Who’s in charge of making sure we have the facilities to be a city? Who’s in charge of making sure there’s somewhere for us to dance?” – Irish Times
Beaming Music To Potential Extraterrestrial Life
The SETI Institute is ready to take music to Mars, or wherever. While it’s a listening project, it’s also now a beaming project. A founding astrophysicist and a musician “have devised the ‘Earthling Project’: a call to people everywhere to upload snippets of song that [the musician] plans to meld into a collective human chorus. An initial composition will be launched into space this summer, inscribed on a virtually indestructible disk alongside Wikipedia and the Rosetta Project, a sampling of 1,500 human languages. Future plans and dreams include an eventual dispatch to Mars.” – The Economist
The Forgotten Black British Writers That A Booker-Winner Wants To Bring Back
Bernadine Evaristo, author of 2019’s Booker prizewinning Girl, Woman, Other, is launching, or relaunching, a series of Black British novels that didn’t quite make it into the British canon. “Our appreciation of literature is deepened when we understand the foundations from which each new generation creates literature anew, but because so much of the body of black British literature hasn’t been taught in schools or universities, or immortalised on television and film, or even been widely or seriously reviewed in the media and academia, it’s as if each new book is published out of a void.” – The Guardian (UK)
Looking For Movies About Wall Street For, Well, Reasons?
You won’t find them on the usual streaming suspects. – The Verge
Simon Rattle’s Departure From London: Sign Of A Post-Brexit Musical Exodus?
“At the darkest hour, with concert halls shuttered and musicians facing visa hell, Rattle’s defection is being regarded, rightly or wrongly, as a loss of faith. I have heard the word ‘betrayal’ muttered by senior figures. His appearance last week at the head of a petition for renegotiating EU access for British musicians was greeted with hollow laughs. Not since Sir Thomas Beecham flitted off to America in the spring of 1940 has a conductor’s departure aroused such heated emotions.” – The Spectator