“Yes, musical organizations will talk about learning pragmatic lessons from this pandemic. But as the industry begins the long march back toward some semblance of normalcy, let’s hope the lessons internalized also include keeping sight of the art form’s unique modes of immediacy, of intimacy, of direct expression, and of vulnerability. These qualities carried classical music through 2020 — and many of the rest of us too.” – Boston Globe
How Beethoven Changed Music In The Young United States
From an 1805 concert for the gentry of Charleston featuring the first movement of the First Symphony through the flood of German immigrants in the 1840s, the establishment of orchestras in New York and Boston, and the rise of the Romantic cult of the lone genius, Beethoven’s music was what established both the habit of programming concerts focusing on dead composers’ works and the idea of classical music as an ennobling force with moral value. – Smithsonian Magazine
2020 Is The Year TikTok Started Transforming The World
“Now, at the end of 2020, TikTok is the most downloaded app of the year – and it’s changed an awful lot more than just how we consume media online.” Among other things, the app and the brief little videos on it have altered the way online comedy, activism, meme culture, and collaborative art. – BBC
Venice’s €6 Billion Flood Barrier Probably Won’t Be Enough
“For all its exquisite engineering, MOSE is essentially a stopgap, a $6 billion duct-tape fix that could work just long enough to induce complacency. The fact that it took so long to design and build means that the technology predated the latest science. … A 2011 UNESCO report concluded that MOSE ‘might be able to avoid flooding for the next few decades, but the sea will eventually rise to a level where even continuous closures will not be able to protect the city from flooding.” – Curbed
Why Play Is Essential To Ideas
Because thinking minds are different from evolving organisms and self-assembling molecules, we cannot expect them to use the same means—mechanisms like genetic drift and thermal vibrations—to overcome deep valleys in the landscapes they explore. But they must have some way to achieve the same purpose. As it turns out, they have more than just one—many more. But one of the most important is play. – Nautilus
Should A Museum Diversify By Selling Some Of Its Best Art?
“MOLAA’s collection is, to be charitable, spotty. But the bizarre claim that certain first-rate artists are “overrepresented” in the collection, which chief curator Gabriela Urtiaga offered to The Times as a rationale for trying to unload 59 works, mostly graphics, does not inspire confidence in upgrading it.” – Los Angeles Times
Consolidation: Major Broadway Theatrical Licensing Agency Is Sold To Competitor
In the letter, Dramatists Play Service says that the move was partly inspired by the challenges facing the theater business posed by coronavirus. It’s a public health crisis that has brought Broadway and other centers of the live events industry to their knees, dramatically reducing the fees that can be garnered for licensing plays and musicals to theater companies around the world. – Variety
The Problem With Hatchet Job Restaurant Reviews
Ted Gioia: “Why write this way? Why compare tomato soup to totalitarian dictators? It’s fun. And it’s easy. There are no real stakes for describing bad food. For these pugilist reviewers, the worst outcome is a bored reader, and thus the sheer unimportance of the subject sanctions a degree of exuberant cruelty unmatched in any other branch of criticism.” – The New Republic
How Annabelle Lopez Ochoa Transformed Her Choreography To Adapt To Lockdown
“No choreographer has done more to extend their repertoire during lockdown than Amsterdam-based Annabelle Lopez Ochoa. By the beginning of December, she was about to premiere her eleventh new filmed work using Zoom, and another two have been made digitally to be performed on stage.” – Bachtrack
Virginia Governor Allocates $11 Million To Revamp Richmond’s Monument Avenue
“Virginia Governor Ralph Northam wants to redesign Monument Avenue, a promenade in the capital city of Richmond lined with shrines to Confederate generals” — four of which were removed as a result of Black Lives Matter demonstrations this past summer, while the fifth, of Robert E. Lee, has been covered with protest art — “and he’s tasked the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts with the job.” – Artnet
At Least One Ballet Company Can Do A Live ‘Nutcracker’ This Year — Outdoors, Under Palm Trees
Gia Kourlas reports on how Miami City Ballet took its version of George Balanchine’s staging — given a tropical look for the company three years ago — and reshaped it for outdoor performance, with costume tweaks and new projections. – The New York Times
Spotify To Stream NPR Podcasts Internationally
“The streaming-audio company inked a deal with NPR to distribute 26 podcasts — including NPR News Hour, Planet Money, Car Talk and Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! — outside the U.S. A few NPR shows that are available on Spotify U.S. aren’t part of the international-distribution pact, including most notably Fresh Air hosted by Terry Gross.” – Variety
Amid Firestorm, Americans For The Arts CEO Goes On Paid Leave
“Lynch’s decision on Wednesday comes after a Washington Post report revealed widespread condemnation of AFTA by advisory council members and current and former staff, who criticized what they have deemed insufficient efforts toward racial equity, transparency and accountability. The article also described charges of a hostile workplace that included sexual harassment, retaliation and intimidation.” – The Washington Post
Court Rules For Museum, Against Heirs In Case Of Kandinsky Bought Under Nazis
“In a decision watched closely by restitution experts, a court in Amsterdam ruled on Wednesday that the Stedelijk Museum there can retain a Wassily Kandinsky painting that it acquired during World War II and which came from a Jewish collection. The 1909 work, Painting with Houses, has been the focus of a restitution battle that has been viewed as a litmus test for Dutch restitutions policy.” – The New York Times
Man Who Burned Down Kyoto Animation Studio Charged With Murder
In July of 2019, Shinji Aoba, now 42, allegedly poured gasoline around the studio building and set it alight; the fire killed 36 people and injured 33 more, including the suspect himself. (Prosecutors had to wait until he had recovered from his burns and undergone an extended psychiatric evaluation before they could indict him.) Aoba now faces trial for murder, attempted murder, arson, trespass, and breaking Japan’s arms-control law. – Variety
City Of Seattle Starts An Arts Real Estate Company
“In an effort to combat cultural displacement and gentrification, the city is taking the rare step of creating a “mission-driven” real estate development company so that it can create, purchase, manage and lease property for arts and cultural spaces — which could include a wide range of venues and organizations, including galleries, bookstores, nonprofit dance companies and cultural community centers. The new entity would likely also develop and manage a new “Creative Economy Hub” on the second floor of the city-owned King Street Station.” – Crosscut
AI Can Now Translate Movie Dialog In The Actors Voices
Deepdub, which came out of stealth on Wednesday, has built technology that can translate a voice track to a different language, all while staying true to the voice of the talent. This makes it possible to have someone like Morgan Freeman narrate a movie in French, Italian or Russian without losing what makes Freeman’s voice special and recognizable. – Protocol
How Nikki Giovanni Has Remained A Household-Name Poet (!) For 50 Years
“Her staying power over half a century comes from a stream of acclaimed work, her proclivity for a punishing schedule of tours and readings, and a fearlessness born of not caring what foolish people think.” – The New York Times