“On Feb. 6, 2014, Takashi Niigaki faced a crowd of reporters … in Tokyo and took a deep and apologetic bow. He had just revealed that he was ghostwriter for Mamoru Samuragochi, who was celebrated as ‘Japan’s Beethoven’ before being exposed as a fraud. In Hiroshima on Aug. 15 of this year, Niigaki found himself again bowing before a crowd, but this time it was on a stage in acceptance of a warm shower of applause.”
Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor, 79, Author, NPR Commentator, Champion Of Gullah Culture
“Smart-Grosvenor first gained widespread attention in 1970 with the publication of her book Vibration Cooking or, The Travel Notes of Geechee Girl. Later she would gain even greater fame as a regular contributor to NPR and host of her own television cooking show.” (Among her many other gigs: backup singer for Sun Ra.)
Six Months On, Benjamin Millepied Talks About His Stormy Tenure At The Paris Opera Ballet
“I hadn’t accepted this assignment for the prestige, but to bring about long-term change. I realize that things could not happen as I envisaged. … Although I regret that the adventure did not last longer, it could not end otherwise.” In an extended Q&A, the now-former artistic director of the world’s oldest and most august ballet company talks about what he found frustrating – and what frustrated others about him. (in French; Google Translate version here)
Why We’re Fascinated By Debut Novels
“Ultimately, the most exciting part of reading a debut novelist isn’t wondering whether she deserved her seven-figure deal, or the rubbernecking pleasure of imagining how she probably won’t earn it back. It doesn’t have to do with hype or youth. It has to do with the possibility of imagining how a certain luminous talent will keep developing over the years, how this talent might expand beyond the horizon of our vision.”
Pittsburgh Symphony Musicians And Management Can’t Agree On Contract, Push Back Deadline
“The PSO’s management and musicians have agreed to a two-week extension on the musicians’ current contract, … [which] was to expire at midnight [Sunday night]. The extension ends on Sept. 18, allowing the PSO to go forward with its fundraising gala on Sept. 17.”
The Dreamscapes Of Book Lovers
“We’re in love with his bookish illustrations of charming scenes that incorporate actual books as playful visual metaphors and design elements. The fantastical drawings evoke that special, happy place that books inspire.”
How Do They Make Those Pies, And That Sex, On BBC Historical Dramas?
“I’ll use things like Old Bailey records to see what words should be said in a courtroom. I have advised on the content of letters, adverts on a wall and what a children’s book might look like.”
An Australian Premiere, And Arts Minister (!), Forgets Her City’s Most Famous Dance Troupe
“It’s difficult to see how anyone can have confidence in an arts minister who can’t even remember our own Queensland-based contemporary arts companies.”
The 100 Jokes That Shaped Modern Comedy
“With apologies to Monty Python, whose influence on contemporary comedy is tremendous and undeniable, we focused only on American humor.”
Scotland Must Stem The Tide Of Barbarians At Its (Beautifully Built) Gates
“It would take a few volumes to explain the chicanery and sheer, unadulterated vandalism.”
This Week in Audience: Connecting the Dots As Louvre Visits Decline 20%
This Week: Tate goes for an artificial intelligence art project… UK has more amateur orchestras than you can shake a stick at… Does community storytelling take advantage of the storytellers?… Why the Louvre’s attendance is down 20%… When data drives your art experience the art changes.
This Week’s Notable AJ Stories: An Artist Erased, A Cautionary Tale
This Week: What exactly does cultural equity actually mean?… In our social media world everything is about images… A cautionary tale as an artist is erased from the internet… There’s a difference between culture and art… Why Italy fought to keep Venice off the endangered list.
This Weekend’s Top AJBlog Posts
Artists Erased From The Web And Our Growing Problem With Facts Are we comfortable letting shareholder-driven companies – any private company – have absolute control over infrastructure that is increasingly essential for the functioning of civil society? Deciding who is visible and who is not? What … read more
AJBlog: diacritical/Douglas McLennan
This Week in Audience: Connecting the Dots As Louvre Visits Decline 20%
This Week: Tate goes for an artificial intelligence art project… UK has more amateur orchestras than you can shake a stick at… Does community storytelling take advantage of the storytellers?… Why the Louvre’s attendance is down 20%… When data drives your art experience the art changes.
AJAudience
Diversity in the Arts: Where are we now? The people at Createquity have put together a great piece on different ways of thinking about what has surely become the hot discussion topic in the art world: diversity. They reveal the depth and complexity … read more
AJBlog: For What it’s Worth
Revisiting Desmond’s Full “TWYLT” Solo Rifftides reader Frank Roellinger reports that a YouTube watcher who goes by the handle Swel1954 has identified a quote in Desmond’s celebrated solo on “The Way You Look Tonight” from Jazz At Oberlin. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides
What One Pianist Would Do If He Were A Prommer, Not A Performer
“It’s great to be on stage facing such an overwhelming – in a good way! – crowd. And it’s a unique audience because those at the front in the arena are standing. It’s a very interesting atmosphere for an artist to experience.”
The War Poets Of The Middle East
“Their verse combines to create a devastating but richly composed verbal landscape that it is at once epic and intensely human. Raw and lyrical, of the moment but seeped in the memories of their people, immediate and for ever.”
Fort Worth Symphony Musicians Reject Contract, Pave Way For Strike Vote
“The musicians, represented by the American Federation of Musicians Local 72-147, voted to reject a four-year deal that included annual income cuts ranging from two percent to 7.5 percent, the union said.”
How The U.S. Got Itself A National African American Museum After Decades Of Disagreement
“Long before its building was complete, for example, the museum staged exhibitions off-site, some on the fraught topics it would confront, such as Thomas Jefferson’s deep involvement with slavery.”
Roald Dahl’s Estate Wants To Become A Children’s Entertainment Empire
Luke Kelly, the author’s grandson: “With publishing shifting a lot, there is still, I think, a huge desire to bring his kind of vivid and mischievous world into other medium. We are really transferring from being a literary estate to being more of a story company, and that is a bit of a scary thing for some people. …[But] it just means that we’re also thinking, How do we get these amazing words and stories into kids’ bedrooms, and into their minds and imaginations, in many ways?”
How Edward Snowden Ended Up In A Hollywood Biopic (It Was Pretty Weird)
“Oliver Stone wanted a hit – and the chance to put America’s most iconic dissident onscreen. The subject wanted veto power. The Russian lawyer wanted someone to option the novel he’d written. The American lawyer just wanted the whole insane project to go away. Somehow a film got made.”
Maestras: Four Top Women Conductors Talk About Cracking The Glass Ceiling
Marin Alsop, Susanna Mälkki, Barbara Hannigan, and Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla talk with Michael Cooper about gendered gestures, their careers, and the progress that’s been made within a generation.
How Sergei Polunin, Ballet’s Gifted Train Wreck, Turned Himself Around
“I was sort of sabotaging myself,” says the now-26-year-old – who became a Royal Ballet principal at 19 and got compared to Nureyev and even Nijinsky – of the turbulent period that saw him storm away from Covent Garden and later from Moscow’s Stanislavsky Theater, which took him in after he burned his London bridges. Then one YouTube video gradually changed everything.