Should the quality of my English matter? Last month a big English literature prize went to a novel that was written in dialect, something rural and very primitive. And what about all that authentic literature “from the streets”? N+1
LA Chamber Orchestra’s Jaime Martín Named Chief Conductor Of Melbourne Symphony
It’s taken Australia’s oldest orchestra five years to find a successor to Andrew Davis, whose tenure ended in 2019, but they’ve now settled on this Spanish-born, London-based flutist-turned-conductor. Martín is also chief conductor of the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra in Dublin, and he recently extended his contract as the LACO’s music director to 2027. – Limelight (Australia)
China Goes All In To Become “Museum Power” — Opens Five New Museums A Week
In 2000 it had fewer than 1,200 of them. By the end of last year there were nearly five times as many. Helped by a decision in 2008 to allow free entry to most government-run ones, visits have also soared. – The Economist
Mark George prepares youth through music education
The President & CEO of the Music Institute of Chicago shares about the evolving responsibility of preparing youth for society through music education. – Aaron Dworkin
Yusef Komunyakaa On Poetry And The Pandemic
Komunyakaa: Writing poetry “feels like one has been chosen as a caretaker of observation. There’s a certain reality, but also there’s a certain kind of dreaming, and that place takes us someplace that we never dreamt of.” – NPR
Brandon Taylor On Escaping The ‘Hermetic Severity’ Of His Booker-Nominated First Novel
Taylor’s Real Life hit many “best of” lists for 2020, and a collection of loosely linked short stories comes out this month. “My most formative early reading was the Bible, which haunts me still, and the first author I loved was Pat Conroy, because the lyrical language of The Prince of Tides sounded so much like the Bible. I tried to imitate that intensity when I started writing, and then I was like, no; a lot of black writers get called raw and visceral because they write lyrically, and if I could remove that from the equation, it would be nice.” – The Guardian (UK)
Riz Ahmed Wants Far More, And Far Better, Muslim Rep In Hollywood
And it’s not just Hollywood. In recent USC study, the researchers “combed through 200 popular films from the U.S., the U.K., Australia and New Zealand from 2017 to 2019. They found that only six of them had a Muslim in a co-leading role, and only one of those was female. Of the nearly 9,000 speaking parts, fewer than two percent were Muslim. And there none in animated movies.” – NPR
Kids Was An Amazing Film – That Ruined Its Subjects’ Lives
When Kids came out in 1995, it won awards, had incredible box-office success for a film so raunchy, and essentially took the film world by storm. But “the film’s legacy is more complicated. Many of the young men and women … tapped to play key roles struggled to find work after the film premiered, and grew frustrated that they’d been paid a pittance while the director and the Weinstein brothers scored major paydays.” – Variety
How The Pandemic Has Changed Our Brains
It’s been … a lot. “It is a generation-defining cataclysm, but for many of us the day-to-day reality has been lonely, even dull. It is a call to action, but the most useful thing most of us can do is stay at home. Covid-19 is a disease that attacks the lungs, but it has also worsened mental health while causing a drastic reduction in patients seeking care for depression, self-harm, eating disorders and anxiety.” – The Guardian (UK)