“In the past, graduate companies kept body and soul together on breadcrumbs for maybe eight to 10 years, always with the hope that if you were good enough you would eventually secure more regular funding. That expectation now seems to have gone.”
So Maybe The Future Of Books Is Not The Printed Page?
“The number of audiobook titles increased by nearly 400 percent between 2011 and 2015. E-books, by comparison, are down in 2016, as are adult hardcovers (i.e., printed books from commercial publishers, not including religious or university press titles). Which prompts the question: Do these statistics herald audio as the preferred reading format of the future?”
Milt Okun, Record Producer Who Crossed Folk With Pop And Changed The Record Industry, Dead At 92
He produced and promoted everyone from Peter, Paul and Mary through Laura Nyro and John Denver (and Plácido Domingo – Okun was the man behind their duet) to the Black-Eyed Peas and will.i.am.
Subsidizing Arts Tickets Hasn’t Succeeded In Broadening The Arts Audience. So Maybe Something Different?
“The uncanny similarities between this year’s Culture White Paper and its 1965 ancestor (along with the Warwick Commission and much other research) show that this hasn’t really produced an arts sector that enfranchises everyone, despite the best intentions of policymakers. Countless initiatives (and millions of pounds) have been spent trying to shift the demographic profile of arts audiences and workers in the sector. They have remained stubbornly white and well-off.”
How Two Brothers Created And Spread The First Alphabet For A Language Spoken By 40 Million People
For several centuries, people have tried to write Fulani – which is spoken across a huge swath of West Africa, from Senegal to Cameroon – with adaptations of the Arabic and Latin alphabets, neither of which can properly represent Fulani’s sounds; neither ever fully caught on. So Fulani remained mostly a spoken language, its speakers taking their school classes in French or English. In 1990, two Guinean teenagers developed a new script, and they’ve spent a quarter-century spreading it.
Winners Of This Year’s National Book Awards
Here’s a complete list of finalists and winners.
They Took Notes For Other People That They Found Lying Around And Made Them Into A Musical
It all started when Davy Rothbart (you may remember him from This American Life – he’s the guy who scalped Chicago Bulls tickets and took his deaf mother to a faith healer in Brazil) found a note on his windshield that said, ‘Mario, I [bleeping] hate you. You said you had to work then whys your car HERE at HER place? You’re a [bleeping] LIAR[.] I hate you I [bleeping] hate you[.] Amber. p.s. page me later.”
Critical Juncture – The Role (And Reach) Of Critics Is Changing
Once, critics like Trilling, Sontag, and Kael commanded the attention of a large audience and were expected to shape and challenge a still roughly homogenous public opinion. Today, many critics struggle to find a unified culture to interpret and criticize and a public to address. As A.O. Scott insists, the critic’s role is “to disagree, to refuse to look at anything simply as what it is,” and yet in an age in which critics often are forced to set their sights on films like Avengers: Age of Ultron, it appears that the critic can be nothing other than “the vanguard of pointing out the obvious.”
Where Diversity Is Integral To The Art Form: Dance
“I came away thinking, One thing we can be proud of is that dancers from all over the world want to come to the United States. This is the country where they find themselves as artists.”
Classical And Pop Music Produce Different Responses In The Brain, Say Researchers
The way they’re putting this may not go over so well with some folks, though: “‘This study gives clear neuronal evidence supporting the view that artistic music is of intelligence, while popular music is of physiology,’ writes a team of researchers led by Ping Huang of South China Normal University in Guangzhou.”
Bob Dylan Won’t Be Going To Accept His Nobel – And Frankly, He’s Been A Jerk About The Entire Thing
Megan Garber: “He’s a ‘screw the establishment’ kind of guy; ironically, that political position is what helped him to win the Nobel in the first place. … Noble! Philosophical! Wonderful! There’s another way to see things, though, which is that Bob Dylan has simply been acting, if you’ll allow me to put it very poetically, like an enormous man-baby, refusing to acknowledge his being awarded one of the most prestigious prizes in the world in a way that manages to be both delightfully and astoundingly rude.”
Two Miami City Ballet Stars Launch Their Own Company
Former principals Jennifer Kronenberg and Carlos Guerra, who retired from MCB in the spring, have founded Dimensions Dance Theatre of Miami, which makes its debut this weekend.
‘A Weaker Pittsburgh Symphony Or Weaker Philadelphia Orchestra Means A Weaker America,’ Says USA Today Op-Ed
“‘American exceptionalism’ during the 20th century included the standing and stature of our symphony orchestras,” writes attorney and string player Jonathan Kaledin. “Taking American orchestra ‘exceptionalism’ further into the 21st century now requires a complete rethinking of the role our federal government plays in providing financial support for these institutions. … What does it say about us that our federal government spent $245 billion bailing out financial institutions that were ‘too big to fail,’ but it will not consider meaningful support for our magnificent but financially distressed symphony orchestra institutions?”
De Niro, DeGeneres, Springsteen, Tyson, Hanks, Ross, Michaels, Gehry, And Lin Among Winners Of Obama’s Final Presidential Medals Of Freedom
Which Tyson? Which Ross? Which Lin? (Not Jeremy. Michael Jordan and Kareem are on the list, though.) Who else is among the 21 honorees? Click and see.
The Year Of The African-American At A Somber 2016 National Book Awards
Of the four prizes, three – for fiction, nonfiction, and young people’s literature – went to black writers; the winning books deal with slavery, racism, and the civil rights struggle. (Why was the event somber? You know why.)
Top Posts From AJBlogs 11.16.16
Kenneth Clark’s Response to Crisis
During World War II, in London’s bleak days, Kenneth Clark acted, as the review of his biography by James Stourton in today’s New York Times reminds us. … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2016-11-16
Creativity and joy — “I could create the career I wanted”
Sarah Robinson, co-chair of the L.A. branch of Classical Revolution, remembers seeing her first CR event: “It was like I had spent 10 years banging my head against a door that would never open [honing her flute technique, auditioning for orchestra jobs], only to look around and realize that there were no walls. I could just walk outside and create the career that I wanted.” … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2016-11-16
Faddis and Beiderbecke
Thanks to Seattle bassist Bren Plummer for calling our attention to a short video of trumpeter Jon Faddis getting acquainted with Bix Beiderbecke’s horn. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-11-16
Edinburgh To Get A New Concert Hall (Home To Scottish Chamber Orchestra)
“The 1000-capacity venue, earmarked for a gap site behind the Royal Bank of Scotland’s historic head office, would be available for the Edinburgh International Festival each summer. The venue will be also be designed to make it suitable for rock, pop, electronica, jazz, folk and chamber concerts, as well as dance events. Other features will include rehearsal and recording rooms, conference and event spaces, and cafe, bar and restaurant facilities.”
An Auction Record $66 Million For A de Kooning Last Night But Sales Are Down Substantially Since 2014
“And yet, sales were down from years past—last November’s postwar sale, with just a few more lots, netted $331.8 million, indicating a drop of 16 percent. But that auction was considered a disappointment, and if you compare Tuesday’s sale to that of November 2014, which brought in $852.9 million over 72 lots, you’d see a two-year dip of 67 percent. The market contraction continues apace.”
Seattle’s EMP Museum Changes Its Name… Again
First it was Experience Music Project. Then it was the acronym EMP, then Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame (“EMPSFM” for short-ish), then EMP Museum. Now the institution founded by former Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen in 2000 and designed by Frank Gehry is becoming the Museum of Pop Culture, or MoPOP.
Five Reasons Jackie Chan Deserves The Honorary Oscar He Just Received
Well, besides the 200+ movies over 56 years and the countless broken bones. “For anyone who has doubts about Mr. Chan’s skill onscreen, here are five clips that, together, illustrate some of his most impressive work.”
Is This Or Is This Not Van Gogh’s Sketchbook?
Two of the world’s top van Gogh scholars say there’s no way these are forgeries or copies: “These are absolutely O.K., from one to 65. End of song, end of story.” A senior researcher at the Van Gogh Museum says they’ve seen the book and dismissed it twice already. So – what’s the evidence?
They’re Charities Now: U.S. Orchestras Take In More In Contributions Than In Earned Income
Another milestone (if that’s the word) in the new report: subscription sales are now lower than single-ticket sales.
The Sentimentality Trap
“Sentimentality offers us the dubious chance to feel while bypassing the messiness of any real human engagement: not too much feeling but too thin an experience.”