If I don’t write this novel, no one else will. No one will know what hasn’t been written. If I don’t translate Calasso, someone else will quickly replace me. – New York Review of Books
Things Seem Genuinely Hopeful At Baltimore Symphony For First Time In Years
Only a year ago, musicians and management were just ending a very bitter lockdown-turned-strike, and unflattering details of the orchestra’s severe money troubles had been splashed across the media. Now, despite the pandemic, there’s a new five-year contract in place and a spirit of cooperation. “It’s an astonishing reversal of fortune,” says the co-chairman of the players’ committee; “We’re working together in ways we haven’t in many, many years,” says the CEO. – Baltimore Magazine
Fort Worth Opera Names New General Director, Its Third In Four Years
Afton Battle, a native Texan with degrees in voice from the University of Houston and Westminster Choir College, “previously worked in development and consulting for the Joffrey Ballet, New York Theatre Workshop, Red Clay Dance Company, the National Black Theatre, and the African American Policy Forum. [She] is also one of the founders of the recently announced Black Theatre Coalition, [which] has a mission to increase employment opportunities for black theater professionals and eliminate systemic racism in American theater. Battle’s commitment to diversity informs her plans for FWO.” – Fort Worth Star-Telegram
‘The Translator Is A Writer, The Writer Is A Translator.’ Oh, Really?
“How many times have I run up against these assertions? — in a chat between translators protesting because they are not listed in a publisher’s index of authors; or in the work of literary theorists, even poets. … In recent months, I have been dividing my working day between writing in the morning and translating in the afternoon. Maybe comparing the two activities would be a good way to test this writer–translator equation.” For Tim Parks, at least, they’re not at all the same. – The New York Review of Books
How We Perceive Time May Be Related To How Wealthy We Are
“Research already suggests that, on average, wealthy people live longer ,biologically. Now, emerging work hints that varied and novel experiences could create more “time codes” in the human brain as it processes memory formation. This, in turn, could mean that people who can afford to enjoy more vacations and hobbies, and who have more stimulating jobs, will recall having lived for a longer time on Earth.” – National Geographic
The Thousand-Year Performance Turns 20
“Harnessing the pure sound of Tibetan singing bowls, this new composition was programmed to run for 1,000 years without ever repeating itself. Two decades on, Jem Finer chuckles at his own presumption. When he was devising the project in the late 90s, he says, he hadn’t understood the real challenge, which was that such a long-term project is only as good as the structures devised to look after it, keeping it relevant to a fast-changing world and up to date with a technological revolution that has swept us from the infancy of the internet to the hyper-connected world in which we now live.” – The Guardian
Musical Theatre Competition Criticized For All-White Semifinals; Organizers Cancel It, Candidates Allege Gaslighting
The Rob Guest Endowment is Australia’s most prestigious musical theatre prize, offering $50,000 (Aus) offers in scholarship money for professional development. In August, a field of 30 semifinalists was announced, and an outcry arose — supported by the candidates themselves — because none of the 30 were BIPOC. Now the Endowment, claiming concern for the semifinalists’ mental health because some have been “targeted and intimidated,” has suspended the award until 2022; the competitors themselves say that they had been about to withdraw en masse. – Limelight (Australia)
Van Cliburn Competition Postponed For First Time Ever
The decision by the organizers of the quadrennial event makes the Cliburn the first major music competition of 2021 to be called off because of COVID. As a result, in 2022 Fort Worth will host both the main competition (in June) and the Cliburn International Amateur Piano Competition (sometime in the fall). – KERA
Lessons For The Arts From The NBA’s “Bubble” Season
The achievements of the enterprise became evident as the playoff games got underway. The bubble games blended theatre and sports to create a hybrid performance space that offered a great “live” experience while protecting performers and audiences. Curtains and video screens masked empty seats in the auditorium. Digital logos and ads, lighting effects on the court, and amplified soundtracks with music, sound effects, and fan noises mimicked the feel of live games both for the players and for those watching at home. – Ludwig Van
So Does This Mean Quibi Has Failed?
Launched in April 2020, Quibi has raised about $1.75 billion from major studios and other investors and has banked dozens of original series from Hollywood A-listers. The major question is who, exactly, would be interested in acquiring the struggling Quibi venture, given its untested business model and weak subscriber traction to date. – Variety
San Francisco Symphony, Opera Musicians Sign New, Reduced Contracts
“We voted to accept devastating changes to our existing contract,” stated a press release issued by the musicians. “Had we rejected these cuts — including 50% of our weekly salary for the fall season and deep but graduated cuts for the ensuing two years — we would immediately have been without any income or the guarantee of health coverage.” – San Francisco Examiner
Online Theatre Has Become Very Creative. But Can A Model To Support It Evolve?
The best of them have come in the shape of theatrical activism, especially amid the Black Lives Matter movement, made cheaply and with a speed that a live theatrical production could never match. These have included a YouTube series about racism experienced by British East Asians as a result of Covid-19, the Bush theatre’s The Protest after the killing of George Floyd, and Roy Williams’s 846, all of which combined the arts, politics and activism. There has also been the Almeida’s Shifting Tides series, which focused on climate activism in audio plays made by their young actors. – The Guardian
How To Understand Beliefs In Fake News? How About The Physics Of Phase Transitions
Those holding odd beliefs are not typically less intelligent. An answer may be found in the way modern communication media have restructured society, leading to the process of opinion-formation no longer chiefly taking place at the individual, but at the collective level, largely unmoored from concerns of factuality and appropriateness. This is best understood by studying the physics of phase transitions. – 3 Quarks Daily
TV Cord-Cutting Has Accelerated During The Pandemic
“Consumers are choosing to cut the cord because of high prices, especially compared with streaming alternatives. The loss of live sports in H1 2020 contributed to further declines. While sports have returned, people will not return to their old cable or satellite plans.” – TechCrunch
Why Do Mixed-Genre Dance Companies Always Do Their Daily Classes In Ballet?
“That disconnect grows wider every year as contemporary choreographers look beyond ballet — if not beyond white Western forms entirely — in search of new inspiration and foundational techniques. Yet dancers at almost all of the world’s leading mixed-rep ensembles take ballet classes before rehearsals and shows. Most companies rarely depart from ballet more than twice a week and some never offer alternative classes.” This has, in fact, been a subject of debate since Diaghilev’s day. – Dance Magazine
Congolese Activist Steals Artifacts From Museums To Protest Colonialism
Mwazulu Diyabanza, the spokesman for a Pan-African movement that seeks reparations for colonialism, slavery and cultural expropriation, is set to stand trial in Paris on Sept. 30. Along with the four associates from the Quai Branly action, he will face a charge of attempted theft, in a case that is also likely to put France on the stand for its colonial track record and for holding so much of sub-Saharan Africa’s cultural heritage — 90,000 or so objects — in its museums. – The New York Times
What Musicians Can Learn From the 1918 Pandemic
Thomas Wolf: “To the extent it was described to us in the younger generation, their travails were recounted as humorous stories with the suffering left out. It was only much later as I began my research about the family that I learned just how treacherous their journey had been.” – Nightingale Sonata
Smithsonian And V&A Call Off Their Joint Museum Plan
“The Smithsonian Institution and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London are abandoning plans to jointly curate a gallery in the planned V&A East museum, slated to open in East London in 2023. The proposed gallery was expected to draw from both institutions’ permanent collections to explore the impact of human life on the natural world.” – Artnet
Playing The Lead In America’s First Musical Staged Since COVID (Nah, No Pressure)
Nicholas Edwards, who took the role of Jesus in the Berkshire Theater Group’s socially distanced staging of Godspell this past summer: “Every day you feel like the whole world is watching you. … Usually the stage is a safe place where we feel most at home and normal, but it became a place where I was anxious all the time.” – The New York Times
RBG’s Death Could Change Intellectual Property Law
“On Oct. 7, the U.S. Supreme Court holds an oral argument in Google LLC v. Oracle America Inc., the most important copyright case in decades. It’ll now happen without the high court’s most fervently pro-copyright voice.” – The Hollywood Reporter
Studios And Unions Reach Agreement On COVID Safety Rules To Restart Shooting
The pact between the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (the studios) and the unions IATSE, SAG-AFTRA, DGA, Basic Crafts, and the Teamsters includes mandatory testing protocols and other safety measures as well as arrangements for paid sick leave and quarantine pay. – Variety
Fired Director Sues Montreal Museum Of Fine Arts
“The ongoing controversy at the Museum of Fine Arts in Montreal has erupted into a legal battle as ousted director Nathalie Bondil sues her former employer for C$2 million ($1.5 million). Bondil’s complaint alleges that the museum board ‘orchestrated, led, and continues to lead an intentional campaign of defamation and destruction of her reputation.’ Bondil is seeking moral and punitive damages on the grounds of unfair dismissal and libel.” – Artnet
Explainer: All About Sacking Of Montreal Museum Of Fine Arts Director
Alex Greenberger lays out the background and history: why Nathalie Bondil had been so acclaimed before she was fired; the new curator and accusations of nepotism; counter-accusations of bullying; what the museum’s board is saying (publicly) about the matter; what the employees are saying (which is rather different). – ARTnews
Audience Shuts Down Madrid Opera Performance Protesting Lack Of Social Distancing
A performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s “Un Ballo in Maschera” at the Teatro Real was canceled after spectators spent more than an hour shouting and clapping to protest against what they said were insufficient social distancing measures in the opera house’s mezzanine levels. Photos and videos shared on social media showed filled rows in the upper sections of the house, in contrast to the orchestra level of the auditorium, where spectators were separated by vacant seats. – The New York Times
The Fight Over The Fight Over Digital Privacy
California tried to legislate digital privacy, but it was a rushed legislative process, and the massive loopholes left during that process haven’t been fixed. But can a ballot initiative, Prop 24, fix them? Some say nope. “Privacy advocates resisting a privacy initiative is less intuitive.” – Wired