“Under the agreement, which is tentatively scheduled to last until Dec. 31, 2021, the two unions agreed that Equity will cover work recorded for digital distribution that replaces, or supplements, a live audience.” But, by god, it had better be as close as possible to a live, in-person performance: SAG-AFTRA has put some very specific restrictions on what qualifies. – The New York Times
Author: Matthew Westphal
Director Of Cantor Museum At Stanford Ousted Over Management Style
“Susan Dackerman, director of Cantor Arts Center, has resigned under pressure after a lengthy investigation revealed a toxic work culture with heavy staff turnover and low morale at the Stanford University museum.” – San Francisco Chronicle
BuzzFeed Is Taking Over HuffPost
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Verizon Media had been reportedly trying to offload HuffPost for more than a year and has been in negotiations with BuzzFeed for several months about a sale.” The two sites will continue to operate separately, each with its own newsroom. – Variety
Academy of Ancient Music, Leading Baroque Orchestra, Names New Director
Under its founder, the late Christopher Hogwood, the AAM made many pathbreaking recordings, including the first period-instrument releases of the complete Mozart symphonies, Bach’s Magnificat, and four Handel oratorios, including Messiah; with Hogwood and his successor, Richard Egarr, the orchestra has built up a discography of more than 200 titles. Taking the reins from Egarr in the fall of 2021 will be harpsichordist/conductor Laurence Cummings, currently director of the International Handel Festival Göttingen in Germany and the London Handel Festival as well as the period orchestra in Porto, Portugal. – Pizzicato
Booker Prize 2020 Goes To Douglas Stuart’s ‘Shuggie Bain’
The Scottish-American writer’s debut novel follows the title character, an impoverished boy in 1980s Glasgow, “as he attempts to care for his alcoholic mother, Agnes, whose descent into alcoholism coincides with her youngest son’s growing awareness of his sexuality. The novel is dedicated to Stuart’s mother, who died of alcoholism when he was 16.” – The Guardian
‘Marge Vs. The Monorail’: An Oral History Of Maybe The Greatest ‘Simpsons’ Episode Ever
“Featuring parodies of The Flintstones, The Music Man and several disaster movies, as well as a family of possums and some memorable lines from guest star Leonard Nimoy, ‘Marge vs. the Monorail’ helped to chart a new course for The Simpsons. … Twenty-seven years on from when it first aired, five key figures involved in making the episode shared their memories of creating a classic.” – Vice
The Opera That Changed Everything: Mark Swed On ‘Einstein On The Beach’
“Almost nothing about what composer Philip Glass and director Robert Wilson put onstage was opera. Einstein has no narrative. Einstein has no Einstein, even though a great many onstage are dressed in the iconic image of frizzy-haired scientist. Einstein on the Beach has no beach. … Everything about [the piece] seemed new and revelatory in 1976. … When the Metropolitan Opera presented the touring production that fall after an ecstatic European tour, in which every seat at every performance was sold out, the company hadn’t performed a new American work in decades. Here was a new beginning for opera in America.” – Los Angeles Times
How To Sing Opera In Mandarin Chinese
Katherine Chu and Juliet Petrus, both alumnae of San Francisco Opera’s Merola/Adler young artists’ program, have written “the first book to introduce Mandarin as a language for singing, with a detailed explanation for the creation of sounds and a system for learning them. … Singing in Mandarin combines a brief study of linguistics, notes about the history of China and Taiwan, the development and significance of Pinyin …, a wealth of information about Mandarin pronunciation, and scores with multilingual text of Chinese [art] songs.” – San Francisco Classical Voice
Andrew White, Versatile Musician And Jazz Scholar, Dead At 78
“Mr. White, who played the oboe, saxophone, bass and other instruments, performed and recorded for more than five decades” in classical and rock as well as jazz. … “He self-produced more than 40 albums of his music, encompassing contemporary jazz, classical oboe, funk, and rhythm and blues. He self-published [an] autobiography … as well as treatises on music, educational manuals and his original compositions and transcriptions.” – The Washington Post
Neighborhood Dance Studios Struggle To Survive Pandemic
From the small operations that give youngsters their first lessons (especially in lower-income areas) to big establishments like the Broadway Dance Center in Manhattan, dance studios, and the skilled pros who run and teach in them, still have to pay the rent and other expenses even as income has plummeted since COVID-19 struck last spring. Here’s how a few of them are trying to avoid closure and keep dance available to their neighborhoods. – The New York Times