John Bell, 75, who established Bell Shakespeare in 1990, will step down at the end of 2015.
What Does It Take To Get Translated Into English, A Nobel Prize?
“As soon as the Nobel Prize in Literature was announced on Thursday, people started asking the inevitable question: Who is Patrick Modiano? … Here, let’s raise another question: Why is it that, so often, when a Nobel Prize is awarded to a non-American writer, readers in the U.S. – even the most well-read and cosmopolitan among us – find themselves drawing a blank?”
Ulster Orchestra Could “Cease To Exist” By Next Month, Warns Lawmaker
A member of Northern Ireland’s Legislative Assembly has said that, in just a few more weeks, the orchestra “will not have enough income to meet their outgoings. It’s a very bleak picture for them.” The province’s arts minister acknowledged that the ensemble’s finances have gone “from scary to scarier”.
A First For ArtPrize: Audience And Jury Choose The Same Winner
Anila Quayyum Agha’s light installation Intersections won the vote for the $200,000 Public Grand Prize outright and split the $200,000 Juried Grand Prize with Sonya Clark’s Hair Craft Project.
How A Milkman From A Russian Shtetl Became An American Icon
Studio 360 considers the unlikely success of Fiddler on the Roof. (audio)
This (Male) Novelist Read Only Women Writers For Three Years
“From Marguerite Duras, I learned that fragmentation is a way of breaking something so that it can describe something the whole cannot. From Christa Wolf, that inserting yourself and the circumstances of your life into a myth can transform the myth and your sense of yourself. I learned the power of prosody from Toni Morrison.”
Yeah, It’s Not Just On ‘Mad Men’ The Show That Someone Mixed Up The Two African-American Actors
“The moment Dawn and Shirley have in the kitchenette where they call each other by the other’s name, commenting on the fact that no one in the office can tell them apart, actually happened to myself and the actress who plays Shirley, Sola Bamis. I won’t say who the offenders were, but it’s happened … on more than one occasion.”
Welcome To Your New Artist’s Studio, Onboard The Cargo Ship
“Artist residencies are typically tied to a geographical place, while this project is anchored in a context and not in one physical location. … Global commerce then becomes the immediate work environment, rather than the fuel for the creative economy in which artists make and sell their work.”
Funding Woes Threaten One-Of-A-Kind Library Rescued From Nazi Germany
“Warburg defenders fear this will push the institute into financial ruin, putting it at risk of closing its stacks or even relocating and splitting apart its collection — a move that the prominent British art historian Martin Kemp recently wrote would be ‘the greatest act of vandalism in Western academia of my lifetime.'”
Homeland Security, Keeping The U.S. Safe From Foreign Poets
“The notion that Nasser might pose a threat to the United States is ‘ridiculous — unless poetry poses a threat to U.S. interests. He is an internationally recognized poet and a highly respected cultural figure in the Arab world.'”
Why Haven’t Most US Literature Fans Heard Of The Nobel Prize Winner?
“The puzzlement could have to do with the fact that despite Modiano’s prolific output — with more than 30 books and screenplays to his name — less than a dozen of his works have been translated into English, and even several of those are now out of print.”
The Raw Materials Of A New Music Review: Texts, iPhone Notes, Scribbles
“I asked my friend and colleague Andrew Tham to join me in attempting to create a new kind of concert review: one that embraced, rather than attempted to deny, our subjectivity; one that could be a bit rough around the edges.”
Can Universal Music Education Fix American Schools?
“A growing body of evidence suggests that music could trump many of the much more expensive ‘fixes’ that we have thrown at the education system.”
Yeah, Size Matters In L.A. Theatre
“The group’s central premise can’t be dismissed: The institutional structures of Los Angeles theater are too weak for an urban center of this size and cultural prestige. Modification to union agreements that points the way toward growth and development is the obvious answer. How to get there is much more complicated.”
Carolyn Kizer, Pulitzer Prizewinning Poet Of Politics And Passion
“She was sometimes called a poet of love and loss, a description whose murky universality irritated her greatly, for what poet’s work, at bottom, is not about those things?”
Rock Star Says Classical Music Concerts Are Super Boring, Wants To Revive Excitement
Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood: “It’s all about trying to play classical music in slightly different venues with a slightly less uptight atmosphere than is usually found in concerts. People are standing, it’s dark, there’s a bar and we set up on the stage and play whatever music we are particularly enjoying at the moment, so we decided the set-list just before we play.”
Theatres Have To Be National And Local At The Same Time (And Yes, It’s Possible)
“In the 21st century a theatre or arts centre needs to be judged not just by what it does on stage but in every area of its activity and how embedded it is within its community.”
A Biologist Discovers That All Violins Are Converging Into Strads
“Violins fell into four families, each represented by an archetype designed by an actual human family—Maggini, Amati, Stainer, and, of course, Stradivari, whose violins were slightly more bass-like in shape. What’s more, other violins became more like these four over time, and especially more like Strads.”
The Moral Quandary Of Using FaceTime To Talk To Our Dying Loved Ones
“My dad told me he felt at peace and wasn’t afraid to die. We said all the things you’re supposed to say, but with several family members watching just off camera, we were both a bit stiff. Was that really going to be it?”
But You Didn’t Believe TV Ratings Anyway, Did You?
“Nielsen has admitted to recently discovering a ‘technical error’ that has impacted national network television ratings over the past several months.”
Philip Glass, Populist [AUDIO]
“I look around at my friends who are painters, my friends who are filmmakers, my friends who are writers, even, and they have larger audiences. But not the composers.”