Hildur Guðnadóttir is actually three-quarters of the way to an EGOT: she has an Oscar (and a Golden Globe) for her score to The Joker and an Emmy and a Grammy for her music for HBO’s Chernobyl. “But it’s on her own, and in the occasional duo or trio setting, that Guðnadóttir has established her signature sound: a moving fusion of ambient drone and contemporary classical that places an emphasis on her exceptionally controlled tone; she’s capable of conjuring entire worlds out of just a few carefully chosen notes.” – Pitchfork
UK’s Broadcasting Authority Gets Responsibility For Policing Web And Social Media
It will be the job of Ofcom to “ensur[e] that firms such as Twitter and Facebook comply with a new legal ‘duty of care’ requiring them to protect their users from illegal material. … Under the government’s original proposals, outlined in last year’s online harms white paper, a website that does not fulfil that duty of care would face a fine, its senior managers could be held criminally liable or the regulator could demand access to the site be blocked entirely.” – The Guardian
38 Years After It Won A Pulitzer, Charles Fuller’s ‘A Soldier’s Play’ Makes It To Broadway
The script was first produced by the Negro Ensemble Company (Samuel L. Jackson, Denzel Washington, and David Alan Grier were in the cast) back in 1982, and Fuller never did anything like it again. Almost everything he wrote since was aimed at Black audiences, and, as he tells Salamishah Tillet, he’d never expected to be having a Broadway premiere at age 80. – The New York Times
Radio New Zealand Kills Plan To Kill Its Classical Station
“The RNZ board has backed down on the decision to take Concert off the FM transmission. The move comes after widespread criticism from the arts community and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s announcement yesterday that the Government would free up unused FM broadband spectrum to keep the station where it is.” – The New Zealand Herald
The Media Industry Is Booming. So Why Is Creative Employment In Los Angeles Down
L.A.’s creative economy directly employed 402,465 workers in 2018, down 0.1% from 2017, according to the annual Otis Report released Wednesday. – Los Angeles Times
Could “Parasite’s” Oscar Win Change The Way Movies Are Distributed Internationally?
International filmmakers and distributors are now eying Bong Joon Ho’s triumphs with hope and hunger: hope that Parasite‘s success will open the door to global cinema, giving other non-English-language movies shots at the world’s No. 1 film award; hunger for the sort of global box office returns that, with few exceptions, have been beyond the reach of films made outside Hollywood. – The Hollywood Reporter
Carlos Acosta’s Big Plans For Birmingham Ballet
The new artistic director says: “I want the level of the dancers to be raised dramatically, and the repertoire I’m bringing is crucial. I want a company that is strong, that is not predictable, that is energetic, that takes risks, but stays true to tradition at the highest level. I’m up for big crazy ideas. I’m never going to say no to anything that’s new and bold.” – The Guardian
New Study Contests When Easter Island Collapse Happened
The research, which appears in the Journal of Archaeological Science, contests the accepted timeline that the Easter Island society was already in decline by the year 1600 and its massive stone statues left to fall into disrepair. Conducting radiocarbon dating on 11 sites on Easter Island, the authors determined the timeline of each monument’s construction. Their findings indicate that Easter Islanders were still actively building new Moai figures, and maintaining existing ones, up until at least 1750. – Artnet
What’s An ASL Interpreter’s Most Difficult Job? Stand-Up Comedy
Obviously, the challenges of rendering timing, tone of voice, and wordplay into a silent medium are daunting. Worse (since comedians aren’t exactly known for respecting boundaries) is when a comic starts directly interacting with the interpreter. – Vulture
Bay Area Theatre Folk Are, Well, Ambivalent About Little Clapping Man In SF Chronicle’s Reviews
One local company head says that the “wild ovation” man can be very helpful, as can the step below, but anything lower stops single-ticket sales dead. The Chronicle‘s arts editor grants that some critics and theatermakers have mixed (at best) feelings about it, but that many readers love it. Critic Lily Janiak worries that it can encourage readers to stop reading. And ACT artistic director Pam McKinnon says the little guy is “a white supremacist icon.” – American Theatre
Facing Storm Of Criticism And Boycott Threats, France’s Motion Picture Academy Promises Reform
“The César Academy has been under fire since announcing the 12 nominations for Roman Polanski’s An Officer and a Spy, as well reportedly shutting out feminist personalities such as the [filmmaker] Claire Denis and author Virginie Despentes from one its gala events preceding the ceremony. Many in the industry have pointed out the lack of gender parity, diversity and transparency within the César’s voting body, as well as within the academy itself.” – Variety
Bizarre Twist In Case Of Stolen Klimt Found In Museum Wall
The 1916-17 Portrait of a Lady, stolen from an art gallery in Italy in 1997, was discovered hidden in a wall of that very museum this past December. Now an entry in the diary of the gallery’s director at the time of the theft raises the possibility that the painting’s disappearance could possibly have been a publicity stunt gone wrong. – The Guardian
Surprise: There’s Been A Rembrandt In Allentown, Pa. For 59 Years
The 1632 Portrait of a Young Woman was attributed to Rembrandt van Rijn when it was given to the Allentown Art Museum in 1961, but during the 1970s the attribution was changed to a student from the master’s studio. But after the painting was sent to a high-tech NYU lab in 2018 for “routine conservation,” scholars reconsidered. – Smithsonian Magazine
Baltimore Symphony Board Adopts Five-Year ‘Master Plan’ To Solve Its Financial Crisis
No details about money or the length of the season have been announced yet; the first will probably come out later this month, and the second will be addressed in this year’s contract negotiations. But there are plans to live-stream concerts and give performances in Baltimore neighborhoods and around Maryland. – The Baltimore Sun
Varna International Ballet Competition Postponed Indefinitely
The world’s oldest ballet competition, held every second year on an outdoor stage in the Bulgarian seaside resort town of Varna, simply hasn’t raised enough money to go ahead this summer. – Dance Magazine
Our Central Need: Meaning
Viktor Frankl argued that literature, art, religion and all the other cultural phenomena that place meaning at their core are things-unto-themselves, and furthermore are the very basis for how we find purpose. In private practice, Frankl developed a methodology he called ‘logotherapy’ – from logos, Greek for ‘reason’ – describing it as defined by the fact that ‘this striving to find a meaning in one’s life is the primary motivational force in man’. He believed that there was much that humanity can live without, but if we’re devoid of a sense of purpose and meaning then we ensure our eventual demise. – Aeon
Angela Hewitt’s $200,000 Piano Destroyed By Movers
She had just finished recording some Beethoven, and movers were taking her piano from the Berlin studio; they dropped it while trying to lift it onto a hand truck, and the instrument’s iron frame crashed and its lid split in two. The Fazioli F278, custom-made for Hewitt, was the only one of its model with four pedals; Paolo Fazioli himself examined it and called it “unsalvageable.” – The Guardian
Joseph Shabalala, Founder Of Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Dead At 78
The male choral group had been active in South Africa for two decades when Paul Simon featured them on his 1986 album Graceland — after which they shot to international fame, won five Grammy Awards, and brought Zulu music to a global audience. – BBC