The nation-state is not so old as we are often told, nor has it come to be quite so naturally. Getting this history right means telling a different story about where our international political order has come from—which in turn points the way to an alternative future. – Boston Review
Rethinking The Orchestra Business
The Symphony’s shift to a customer-centric approach is also reflected in their departure from sending the industry standard “killer offer” coupons to first-time audiences in an attempt to bring them back. It seems simple on the surface, but offering a cash voucher instead of a discount coupon is a dramatic shift in messaging from the egocentric “Please come back!” to the customer-centric “Thanks for coming! Let us help you afford another concert.” – Culture for Hire
Why Sarah Lane Quietly Slipped Away From ABT
“[After 18 years,] Lane and ABT parted ways last summer, although no announcement was made; rather, in September, her name was quietly taken off the roster. … She recently opened up to Pointe about her departure from the company, although for privacy reasons certain details are remaining undisclosed.” (Hmm.) – Pointe Magazine
Why ‘The Great British Baking Show’, ‘Project Runway’, And Other Reality TV Competitions Have Been The Hits Of The COVID Era
“Rather than offering an escapist vision of a world unravaged by pandemic, I’ve taken reassurance from the way these shows offer an escapist vision of pandemic. They present quarantine conditions as a utopia in which creative laborers, isolated in a single space for an extended period of time, yield art validated through external adjudication. They have ‘flourished,’ instead of slowly sinking into their couches.” – The American Scholar
When ISIS Made Off With A Magritte Nude (Which Made It Back Intact!)
In 2009, a pair of thieves got into the René Magritte Museum in the Brussels suburb of Jette, located in the artist’s former home, and stole Olympia, a reclining nude portrait of his wife. The painting was returned two years later, after what amounted to a ransom payment by the museum’s insurer. The assumption had been that the robbers were connected to an Eastern European organized crime ring; in fact, the apparent thief went on to take part in Belgium’s worst ever terrorist incident. Here’s how the police officers involved figured that out — along with why the perp wasn’t caught and kept in custody. – Vanity Fair
A New Disney Movie Gives Punk’s Overlooked Women Designers Their Due
Yes, that’s a weird confluence, but Cruella still makes it happen. “Cruella signposts something essential about punk: the power of reinvention. For the original punks, clothes weren’t just clothes but a ticket to a whole new you, cut to your own design.” – The Guardian (UK)
French Quarantine Rules May Prevent Britons From Attending Cannes
The problem is a new variant: “After delays caused by Covid, the festival confirmed it would take place in early July, but France has announced a seven-day isolation period for visitors from the UK in response to rising concerns over the Covid variant B.1.617.2, first detected in India. The move is likely to affect thousands, both among the press corps and industry delegates, and large numbers of unregistered attendees.” – The Guardian (UK)
There’s A New Black Superhero In Town – And That Town Is Milan
It’s not common for Italian shows to have mostly Black casts, but the new show Zero does – and makes the invisibility of Black Italians a superpower. – NPR
Restarting The New York Phil, In A Cemetery
Justin Davidson, on the NY Phil’s Green-Wood Cemetery “Death of Classical” concert: “That might not seem like the obvious location to stage the revival of performance culture, but when Green-Wood opened in 1838, it was intended to be one of New York’s grandest, most verdant, and most romantic public parks. (Today, its permanent residents include the orchestra’s late music director Leonard Bernstein.)” And for the musicians who will take part, they will inevitably experience some emotions about performing together after so long apart. – Vulture
It’s Time To Abolish Museums
Does that sound hyperbolic? It is, a bit. It’s time to abolish what musuems have been in order to see what they can be, how we can be. “Museums exert control over how we vision ourselves, past, present and future. They are the time loops that hold and hoard the works of art that can help us chart a course towards collective liberation. Through maintaining control of a broad swath of artworks and artifacts the museum maintains control of the tools that we use to tell stories about ourselves, the tools we use to think about what we can be. There is an opportunity in the abolition of museums to create something caring and joyful.” – Hyperallergic
Prizewinning Composer Sara Glojnaric Talks About How Music And Identity Intersect
Sara Glojnarić, who won Berlin’s “Neue Szenen” competition last year, explains that being a woman, being queer, and working against racism all intersect in her work, and she believes others’ identities are reflected in their work as well. When she was in school at Stuttgart, she says, “our professor, Martin Schüttler, encouraged us to engage with that, to work with our identities in our music. He made it clear that we mustn’t run away from who we are when we’re composing. It was a really cool place to be, in that kind of a class with that kind of a professor. All of these things that were so difficult for me in Croatia suddenly became completely normal.” – The Nerd Daily
John Steinbeck Really Did Write A Werewolf Novel. No Way His Estate Is Letting You See It.
“The manuscript, Murder at Full Moon, was completed in 1930 but was never published. A single copy has been sitting, mostly forgotten, in an archive in Texas since 1969. It includes drawings by Steinbeck himself. A scholar of American literature at Stanford University is pushing for the book to be published, but the agents for Steinbeck’s estate vehemently refused this week.” – The New York Times
Blindsiding Movie Talent With Streaming Is Probably The New Normal
Gotta keep those subscriber numbers up with direct to streaming movies! But … how do agents, producers, directors, and actors feel about this? It’s not ideal right now: “Talent typically has little leverage should a studio decide to put a title onto a streaming service, sources say. It did not readily occur to either agents or studios that contracts for projects releasing in 2021 — drawn two to three years ago, before some of the major services had launched — would have to stipulate paydays should the film be moved from a planned theatrical release.” – The Hollywood Report
Musicians Don’t Make Good Money From Streaming, But Is That Spotify’s Fault?
The amount of money people are spending on music hasn’t changed from when we bought albums at the record store or CDs by Sony subscription service – but the way musicians get the money, and how much money they get, is radically different. “When we talk about per stream rates, what we’re doing is sort of smushing all of this data together and dividing it up and looking at averages and trying to work out basically where they are. When you do that with Spotify, you come out with a horrendously low rate: around $0.003 per stream.” – The New Republic
Inside TikTok’s New Incubator For Black Creators
The app – long derided both for squelching LGBTQIA voices and exploiting Black creators – reacted to the George Floyd protests by starting an incubator for Black voices. How’s it working now? “Program members bonded. … They shared legal advice, sample media kits, tips on talking to potential agents or collaboration partners and the stresses of turning a hobby into a career.” And, TikTok says, the program will likely be expanded. – Los Angeles Times
Shakespeare’s Globe’s Bumpy Return To Work
Not only are audience members (at a quarter of pre-COVID capacity) required to stay six feet from each other, so are all the actors and crew. That’s presenting quite a traffic management puzzle for director Sean Homes as he restages his 2019 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the Elizabethan theatre’s reopening. – The New York Times
After Investigation, Embattled Head Of Americans For The Arts Departs Permanently
“Robert L. Lynch, the longtime president and chief executive of the Washington-based advocacy organization Americans for the Arts who had been on paid leave since December amid workplace complaints, has agreed to retire effective immediately, the organization’s board announced Thursday.” – The New York Times
Sexual Abuse In El Sistema, Long Rumored, Is Now Being Brought To Light
A Facebook post in late April from an alumna of Venezuela’s famous system of free musical education “has since sparked a collective portrait of teenage girls in El Sistema being systematically groomed by older male teachers, with coercive innuendos and propositions as everyday occurrences.” Said one former student of her oboe teacher, “His methods rested on an uplifting discourse of art, passion and intellect. According to him, I had to let myself be carried away by sexual desire in order to achieve a full sound.” – The Washington Post
Hermitage Museum Satellite In Barcelona Gets Go-Ahead
“The [St. Petersburg landmark’s] long-awaited Barcelona branch has finally been given the green light for development. The port of Barcelona’s board of directors announced on Thursday that a proposal for the Hermitage Barcelona was approved, despite considerable resistance from the city authorities. The building, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Toyo Ito, is slated to open in 2024.” – ARTnews
It’s The First New Ancient Greek-English Dictionary In 178 Years, And Victorian Euphemisms Are Gone
Having decided that the old reference works, still in use in English schools and universities, were too “antiquated” to work from, the editors of the new Cambridge Greek Lexicon spent 23 years going over virtually every surviving piece of ancient Hellenic writing back to Homer and up to circa 120 AD. “The new dictionary’s editors ‘spare no blushes’, [lead editor James] Diggle said, when it comes to the words that ‘brought a blush to Victorian cheeks’.” – The Guardian
BBC Proms Will Have Live Audiences (And “Rule, Britannia!”) This Summer
“While a normal season features about 90 concerts over eight weeks, last year just 14 concerts played to an empty Royal Albert Hall. The BBC said the plan this summer was for 52 concerts over six weeks, with audiences. ‘And we pray it will be a full audience,’ said the Proms director, David Pickard.” – The Guardian
Carla Fracci, One of 20th Century’s Greatest Ballerinas, Dead At 84
Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, where she was trained and first became famous, “recalled the ‘fairytale rise’ of the daughter of a tram driver who, through ‘talent, obstinance and work became the most famous ballerina in the world, has inspired generations of young people, and not just in the world of dance.'” – Yahoo! (AP)
In France, Some Theaters Can’t Reopen Because Demonstrators Demanding Reopening Won’t Leave
“For the last two months, culture workers in France have been protesting on-site at scores of theaters around the country, demanding they reopen and that staff receive better financial support. But when theaters, museums, and cinemas were finally given go-ahead to open their doors on May 19 after more than six months of lockdown, few protestors cried victory. Instead, many refused to leave the theaters where they have been camping out.” – Artnet
The Guardian Newspaper Was Founded The Year Napoleon Died. It’s Been A Singular Enterprise Ever Since
Its history is peppered with financial crises and near-death experiences. Perhaps it was placed on earth to make “righteousness readable” (in the centenary words of Lord Robert Cecil), but the paper has nearly always struggled to make it remunerative. – New York Review of Books