Berkeley Rep Theatre Chooses A New Artistic Director
Johanna Pfaelzer, who is currently the artistic director of New York Stage and Film, a nonprofit best known for its Powerhouse Theater summer program at Vassar College, will become the next artistic director of Berkeley Rep starting next fall. She will succeed Tony Taccone, who has been at Berkeley Rep for 33 years, 21 of them as artistic director. … Read More
Published in The New York Times on 09.10.18
Canadian Authors Are Having A Moment In Hollywood
“It’s an incredible time for Canadians in the industry and I think authors like Margaret Atwood who are so prolific and ahead of their time are making a difference. People outside Canada are noticing.” … Read More
Published in Toronto Star on 09.09.18
Study: Disabled People Participating More In The Arts
While disabled people are still less likely to engage with the arts than others, 75.7% did so last year, the highest level since records began, and significantly above the average of 71.2% recorded between 2005/06 and 2016/17. … Read More
Published in Arts Professional on 09.07.18
When Jazz Really Mattered (And Still Does)
“More people in the United States listen to and enjoy jazz or near-jazz than any other music. Jazz is of tremendous importance for its quantity alone.” That was Marshall Stearns, one of the founders of academic jazz studies, writing in 1956 to argue why his subject was worthy of serious scholarship. As Nate Chinen says in his fascinating and vital new book, Playing Changes: Jazz for the New Century, that passage now sounds bizarre, like a report from “a vanished culture.” In fact, the music’s status today is the complete opposite: Most people vaguely recognize jazz’s cultural importance, but no one’s expected to get too excited about it … Read More
Hundreds Of Ancient Roman Coins Found In Theatre Basement
The coins, hundreds of them, date back to the late Roman imperial era and were found in a soapstone jar unearthed in the basement of the Cressoni Theater in Como, north of Milan. … Read More
Will NYCityBallet Dancer’s #MeToo Lawsuit Force Reforms?
With the company due to open its autumn programme on 18 September, one of its principal dancers has publicly declared that the NYCB needs “a moral and fair individual to lead us out of this darkness”. Signs also seemed to be emerging that the NYCB may face a boycott over Ms Waterbury’s claims that her ex-boyfriend Chase Finlay, while a principal dancer at the company, shared nude photos of her and joked about abusing ballerinas … Read More
Published in The Independent (UK) on 09.09.18
Burning Man: Celebrating The Great Nothing
Routinely exposing a population of 80,000 to a perfect barren in relatively safe circumstances should be seen as an ingenious experiment. After all, philosophers from Edmund Burke to Arthur Schopenhauer have recognised that qualities in nature can be appreciated as sublime only if they fall just short of absolute threat. … Read More
Shakespeare And The Political Resistance
Two new books argue that Shakespeare wove oblique political critiques of the English establishment into his works, and that we can learn a thing or two from them in our own troubled times. … Read More
Published in The New Republic on 09.07.18
Why YouTube Stars Are Burning Out At A Fearsome Rate
Matt Lees began to feel a knock-on effect on his health. “Human brains really aren’t designed to be interacting with hundreds of people every day,” he says. “When you’ve got thousands of people giving you direct feedback on your work, you really get the sense that something in your mind just snaps. We just aren’t built to handle empathy and sympathy on that scale.” … Read More
Published in The Guardian on 09.08.18
The Women Who Are Busting Into The Samba Circle
With astonishing speed, female musicians in Brazil have in the past couple of years begun breaking into the male realm of samba circles, taking a seat at the table both literally and figuratively. Just a few years ago, the musicians playing in a samba circle jam session used to be almost all male. In 2018, though, a clutch of all-female samba groups have set out to change that, and in doing so, they have generated what could be a sea change for this beloved Brazilian musical genre. … Read More
Published in The New York Times on 09.08.18
Have Researchers Taught AI How To Recognize And Understand Language?
The most widely tested model, so far, is called Embeddings from Language Models, or ELMo. When it was released by the Allen Institute this spring, ELMo swiftly toppled previous bests on a variety of challenging tasks—like reading comprehension, where an AI answers SAT-style questions about a passage, and sentiment analysis. In a field where progress tends to be incremental, adding ELMo improved results by as much as 25 percent. … Read More
Your Reading Comprehension: Print Versus Screen Versus Audio
If you’re reading, it’s pretty easy to go back and find the point at which you zoned out. It’s not so easy if you’re listening to a recording. Especially if you’re grappling with a complicated text, the ability to quickly backtrack and re-examine the material may aid learning, and this is likely easier to do while reading than while listening. … Read More
Tate Outsources Bio Info To Wikipedia?
A Tate spokeswoman says that the gallery does “not have the resources to create biographies for every individual” in its collection, or to update biographies for living artists. Wikipedia provides “the most up to date and reliable biography possible within the constraints of our resources”, she adds. … Read More
Published in The Art Newspaper on 09.10.18
Will Blockchain Really Make A Difference In The Art World?
The first model is art registries, which is where the technology offers incontestable benefits. All the information about a work of art is entered on the chain, so ownership of the work can be tracked and its characteristics recorded in a form that cannot be modified. This is potentially good for verification of authenticity, provenance and trust. It may have particular benefit for living artists, allowing them to track sales and eventually claim resale rights. … Read More
Published in The Art Newspaper on 09.10.18
These Long-Forgotten, Four-Dimensional Numbers Led The Way To Modern Algebra (And More)
The history of quaternions includes a mathematician gleefully carving his ideas into Dublin's Broome Bridge, spurious negative numbers, and a war among physicists. … Read More
Previously On AJ
Premium Classifieds
Publicity Manager, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center seeks a creative, high energy Public Relations Manager, with proven success achieving consistent high visibility for a classical arts or other … [Read More]
Classifieds
Associate Vice President of Development, Pacific Symphony
We are seeking an Associate Vice President of Development (AVP) to work closely with the Vice President of Development to improve fundraising infrastructure and to ensure that all fundraising goals … [Read More...]
Director of Major Gifts, Pacific Symphony
We are seeing candidates with professional experience and a demonstrated track record for the position Director of Major Gifts with Pacific Symphony, located in Orange County, California. Some of the … [Read More...]
President, The Florida Orchestra
Celebrating its 50th anniversary in the 2017-18 season, The Florida Orchestra is recognized as Tampa Bay’s leading performing arts institution, the largest professional orchestra in Florida. The … [Read More...]
Director of Special Funding and Principal Gifts, Pennsylvania Ballet
Pennsylvania Ballet seeks an accomplished, energetic development professional to join a growing team and build a highly sophisticated Principal Gifts program as the Company considers an unprecedented … [Read More...]
Endowed Professorship — UCLA Department of Music
The Department of Music in the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music is pleased to invite applications for a senior-level, tenured, professorial position as inaugural holder of the Leo M. and Elaine Krown … [Read More...]
Art Jewelry Forum (AJF) seeks Executive Director
Art Jewelry Forum is seeking a multi-talented Executive Director to lead the organization at this time of growth. This is a unique opportunity for a creative leader with significant people skills, … [Read More...]
Managing Director, National Arts Centre Orchestra
Those four words inform everything we do as a catalyst for performance, creation and learning across this great land. We are proud to be a home for many of Canada’s most exciting artists who captivate … [Read More...]
Executive Director, Flagstaff Arts Council
The Flagstaff Arts Council invites applications and referrals for the position of Executive Director. Founded in 1999, the Flagstaff Arts Council is the leading agency for the arts and sciences sector … [Read More...]
A Movie Where Opera Doesn’t Signal Evil
Of course, it had to be the adaptation of Ann Patchett's novel Bel Canto. The movie, which comes out on September 14, "is the rare film that does not use opera to comment ironically on bloodshed, or signal sinister depravity, or provide the sonic equivalent of a heart-shaped box of chocolates in a moment of slightly cloying Valentine’s Day-style romance." … [Read More]
Published in The New York Times on 09.07.18
Movie Theatres Want Netflix Movies Playing In Them (And The Industry Does Not Disagree)
Big screens are simply better, or so the movie theatre owners say. "'Our model can work for their movies, too,' National Association of Theatre Owners president and CEO John Fithian told the Hollywood Reporter while attending the Toronto International Film Festival. Holding out an olive branch to Netflix, Fithian welcomed the streamer's success in bringing more content to more audiences." … [Read More]
Published in The Hollywood Reporter on 09.08.18
If Money And Success Were The Issue, Hollywood Would Have Made A Ton Of Asian And Asian American Movies After Joy Luck Club
Critics raved, and lines stretched around the block, when The Joy Luck Club opened in 1993. The actors and director started to receive offers - and they thought the long drought of good movies and roles for Asians and Asian Americans in Hollywood was coming to an end. But "roadblocks proved shockingly resilient. Instead of ushering in a crop of Asian-American projects, The Joy Luck Club remained a token for more than two decades." Will Crazy Rich Asians be different? … [Read More]
Published in The New York Times on 09.09.18
How Did A Naked Burt Reynolds End Up In A Native Art Gallery In Seattle?
Tlingit artist Alison Marks made it to answer the male gaze that permeates the contemporary Pacific Northwest market. She said, "Many of the male artists working today are kind and gifted and admirable people, but there are these very detailed anatomical works on the market representing the female form." … [Read More]
Published in KUOW (Seattle) on 09.07.18
Accused Sexual Harasser Les Mooves, Reported To Have Been ‘Obsessed’ With Ruining Janet Jackson’s Career, Is Finally Gone From CBS
Ronan Farrow reported a long piece in The New Yorker on the accusations against him in July and added a follow-up report Sunday, September 9, days after the HuffPost's Yashar Ali reported that the CBS exec wanted Janet Jackson's career "destroyed" after the infamous "wardrobe malfunction." Moonves is now gone from the network. … [Read More]
Published in The New York Times on 09.09.18
Britain Scraps Plans To Increase Tax On Lower-Paid Theatre Workers By 500 Percent
Er, yes, that cancelation seems like a good idea for everyone who's self-employed and earning less than £6.205 per year. … [Read More]
Published in The Stage (UK) on 09.07.18
Irving Petlin, Artist Who Used Symbolism To Paint About Social Upheaval, Has Died At 83
Petlin "strove to preserve history in a style that was neither realistic nor abstract. Rather than depict brutal events graphically, he reimagined them with subtlety and surrealism." … [Read More]
Published in The New York Times on 09.07.18
The Centenary Of One Of Wagner’s Greatest Interpreters
Birgit Nilsson, the Swedish soprano, had a "voice at full throttle [whose] sheer projectile force has been often and aptly compared to that of a steel blade." … [Read More]
Published in New York Review of Books on 09.08.18
How Did Netflix Become A Comedy Powerhouse?
It's because of Lisa Nishimura, basically, the vice president of original documentary and comedy programming who convinced Dave Chapelle to return to stand-up specials for the company. And she bet big on a lot more comedy as well. "Now, 50 percent of its 130 million [U.S.] subscribers have watched a special in the last year, and a third of those viewers have watched three such shows." … [Read More]
Published in The New York Times on 09.09.18
New York Gets Literal Signs Of Climate Change
The art show "includes 10 solar-powered signs installed in parks around the city. Each sign flashes climate-change-related phrases in English and in Spanish, Russian, French and other languages used in nearby neighborhoods." The show - city-supported! - even gets environmental justice walking tours. … [Read More]
Published in The Washington Post on 09.09.18