“Sound therapies have long been popular as a way of relaxing and restoring one’s health. For centuries, indigenous cultures have used music to enhance well-being and improve health conditions. Now, neuroscientists out of the UK have specified which tunes give you the most bang for your musical buck. In fact, listening to that one song — “Weightless” — resulted in a striking 65 percent reduction in participants’ overall anxiety, and a 35 percent reduction in their usual physiological resting rates.”
America Invented Adolescence (And America May Soon See The End Of It)
“In addition to the conventional scope of childhood from birth through to age 12 – a period when children’s dependency was widely taken for granted – Americans moved the goalposts of childhood as a democratic ideal by extending protections to cover the teen years … [and creating] institutions that could guide adolescents during this later period of childhood” – the juvenile court system and the democratic high school.
Philip Glass Wins A Literary Prize
And no, it’s not for the libretto of Einstein on the Beach. (“1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, …”) It’s for an actual book: his memoir from last year.
John Milton’s Satan Is A Superhero
Stephen Akey: “My hero is fearless, proud, resolute, farseeing, self-sacrificing, and profoundly engaged in the struggle against tyranny and oppression. He’s also several hundred feet tall (when he wants to be), [and] does celestial cartwheels when flying between the earth and sun.”
How Is Julie Kent Changing The Washington Ballet?
She took over from Septime Webre as artictic director in July, and her first changes are just starting to show up. Jennifer Stahl gives us a rundown of what they look like so far.
Report Tries To Tally Cultural Industries Impact Of Brexit
The UK cultural sector’s ties in the EU are financial and artistic. So what are the costs for artists in Britain’s decision to leave?
Fake Old Master Has The Art World On Edge
So how did this painting, purporting to be a Frans Hals, fool top level experts? It’s making the art world worry about what other fakes might be out there and about a system that doesn’t seem to have done its job vetting. Is a bigger scandal looming?
In Defense Of The Publisher That Rejected ‘Pride And Prejudice’
Fans of Jane Austen have always tut-tutted about Thomas Cadell of Cadell & Davies, who returned the P&P manuscript to Jane’s father with a curt five-word note in 1797. Yet Cadell really doesn’t deserve the ignominy that that one decision has conferred on him. (Hey, we all make mistakes.) He certainly wasn’t anti-woman – quite the opposite, in fact.
Dude, *Please* Don’t Call Me A Philanthropist, Say Millennial Donors
Have the young’uns heard too many TED Talks? “The next generation of philanthropists at this year’s Philanthropy Australia conference made it perfectly clear that they would prefer to be known as ‘change-makers’ or ‘social entrepreneurs’, and so, are ‘consciously uncoupling’ from being known as philanthropists.”
Here’s How To Get Boys Interested In Ballet (From A Star Dancer Who Grew Up In A Maryland Slum)
“I found the best way to engage with these kids was to see if they could jump higher than me, run faster than me – physicality is what stimulated them. … Kids are required to take PE, so they could be encouraged to consider dance, too. The way in would be through dance generally, and now would be a good time for this, as hip-hop and ballroom clearly have a following.” An essay by Royal Ballet soloist Eric Underwood.
Susan Graham To The Rescue At Lyric Opera Of Chicago
Talk about a casting coup … Sophie Koch was going to sing Didon in Lyric’s new production of Berlioz’s Les Troyens, which opens in a bit more than two weeks, but she just pulled out for personal reasons. And who should happen to be available but the world’s reigning singer of the role?
Chicago Symphony Had Record Ticket Sales Last Season, But Still Ran A Deficit
Single-ticket sales, and overall box office were at all-time highs, contributions were up, subscription renewals were at 90% – and still the budget gap just hasn’t closed yet.
First Look At George Lucas’s Futuristic Plans For A San Francisco Museum
“Call it hedging your bets, call it beefing up your odds, call it the architectural equivalent of quite publicly asking two people to prom on the same day: The dual-track proposal is an unusual gambit by any measure. And it suggests that rather than feeling chastened enough by those prior defeats to reassess his sales pitch, to slow down and rethink the plans for the museum in a wholesale way, Lucas is instead growing ever more impatient to get a deal done.”
Research: What Kind Of Arts Video Do Audiences Want?
“Based on our research data, digital content has two functions primarily: it develops the audience’s familiarity with the company’s work, and it aligns their expectations of a particular performance. Rather than using supporting materials to make a purchase decision, audiences tend to consume them after booking their tickets, to gain an insight into the story and creative process, reassure themselves of the quality of the company and production, and increase their level of anticipation ahead of the performance.”
Hal Prince: Theatre Needs More Producers
“Today, the producing population has been infiltrated by investors who assume the job title of “producer.” In the days when I was producing, I had 175 investors. They were press agents, company managers, actors, stagehands, and, of course, a few of my parents’ friends. But the names of producers above the title were never more than three. If you are a creative producer with an impressive track record, investors should have no serious role reading a script, contributing to the casting of a show, approving its decisions, and—guess what—attending the meeting the day after a show has opened and giving advertising advice.”
A Need For Women’s Theatre
“I believe in small, immersive theatre, and that the disappearance of the black box—which is happening all over—means devastation to the form. When we package theatre up and market it like dollar store pregnancy tests, we lose the power of the form. Women make up 50 percent of our world, so without the contemporary voices of women on today’s stages, audiences are only getting half of the story. Humanity cannot afford this. Especially not now.”
What Bob Dylan’s Non-Response To The Nobel Means
“The Nobel Prize is in fact the ultimate example of bad faith: A small group of Swedish critics pretend to be the voice of God, and the public pretends that the Nobel winner is Literature incarnate. All this pretending is the opposite of the true spirit of literature, which lives only in personal encounters between reader and writer. Mr. Dylan may yet accept the prize, but so far, his refusal to accept the authority of the Swedish Academy has been a wonderful demonstration of what real artistic and philosophical freedom looks like.”
Taking The ‘Hall’ Out Of ‘Concert Hall’ – Classical Organizations Move Into Un-Classical Venues
“Arts administrators are united in the belief that spreading music as far as possible, in both the digital and physical worlds, is more than just a marketing gimmick: It’s a strategy for survival. The world is full of intellectually curious, artistically adventurous young people who would no more buy a ticket to hear Brahms’s Requiem in concert at Geffen Hall than they would stick a stamp on a handwritten letter.”
In American Popular Culture, There’s No Such Thing As A Bad Police Shooting
“Decade after decade, pop culture has continued to churn out stories that justify and even lionize officers who kill. These stories first turned shootings – and they are almost always shootings – into acts of last resort by noble policemen, and later into exciting executions of dangerous villains. Hollywood has promoted the very myths that result in our being shocked when we see an officer shoot a fleeing person or fire into a parked car, as well as an inflated narrative of valor that generates a near-automatic presumption of the guilt of those killed by police.”
2,000-Year-Old Roman Statue At British Museum Had Its Thumb Knocked Off By Caterers
“The Townley Venus, one of the British Museum’s most important Roman sculptures, was damaged when its thumb was knocked off as catering staff were setting up for an evening event last December.”
It’s Been A Long Time And Boatloads Of Money, But Hamburg’s Landmark New Concert Hall Is Finally Opening
“After a delay of six years and about a tenfold increase in costs, a new classical music performance space here is preparing to open its doors. The Elbphilharmonie, a glass-paneled building mounted atop a former warehouse, includes not just two concert halls but a four-star hotel, a restaurant and residential apartments.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 10.26.16
A Star Turn for Giovanni di Paolo
Ever since I first saw Giovanni di Paolo’s The Creation and the Expulsion from the Paradise in the Robert Lehman Collection at the Metropolitan Museum, I’ve been a huge fan of the Sienese painter. … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2016-10-26
Get a room!
Looking at an orchestra through the four frames, I don’t see any space designed for innovation, imagination and open questions. I don’t see anything like a workshop. What do I mean by ‘workshop’? I mean … read more
AJBlog: SongWorking
“Wichi-Tai-To” By Towner and Peacock
From his American Indian grandfather, tenor saxophonist Jim Pepper learned “Witchi-Tai-To,” a peyote healing chant of the Native American Church. It became a part of the repertoires of several bands including Oregon … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-10-26
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National Theatre Of Scotland Gets A New Director
“Jackie Wylie will be the first Scottish leader of the theatre, and follows the surprise departure of Laurie Sansom earlier this year after three years in the post. Wylie was previously artistic director and joint chief executive of the Arches in Glasgow. From 2008 until its closure in 2015 she transformed the theatre and clubbing complex into a hotbed of cultural activity.”
Buffalo Philharmonic Was Once As Down And Out As Its City – And Both Are Coming Back
“‘When I got here,’ [music director JoAnn Falletta said of the orchestra’s hall], ‘there was graffiti all over this, and the glass was broken.’ That was in the late 1990s, when many assumed that Buffalo and its orchestra were both pretty much finished. … Nearly two decades later, the orchestra has proved its viability – as has the city, slowly yet steadily improving its fortunes.”