Category: AJBlogs

Spoiler Alert: Humans Have Bodies
I began my professional life as an arts management educator just over 20 years ago, in Fall 1995. My focus, since then, has been rather specific: effective management of (mostly) professional (mostly) nonprofit organizations that … read more
AJBlog: The Artful Manager Published 2016-01-14

What orchestras could do for David Bowie
Do classical music institutions think that Bowie’s death had anything to do with them? The Seattle Symphony, at least, tweeted something strong. But I can make a case for any big-time classical group to pay great attention, and react publicly. … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2016-01-14

New Year’s “Resolutions,” Sotheby’s Edition: What Artworld Uncertainties Should Be Resolved in 2016?
This is the third post in my series (hereand here) of how thorny artworld issues that vexed us in 2015 could achieve satisfying resolution in the year ahead. … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2016-01-14

Vanishing act
Dance: such a fragile artform. Written in bodies, tucked in memories, if it isn’t seen, it dies. I was reminded of this melancholy fact by two recent reports. First, the Swedish choreographer Mats Ek … read more
AJBlog: Performance Monkey Published 2016-01-14

Bill Evans After LaFaro
To follow up on the post in the previous exhibit about the Bill Evans documentary, let’s revisit the 1962 Evans trio with bassist Chuck Israels and drummer Paul Motian. This clip seems to be … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-01-14

Danny Barker’s Birthday
One of the great pleasures of my years in New Orleans was a friendship with Danny Barker (1909-1994). After he moved back to his hometown from New York, Danny became a guiding light to young … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-01-14

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Arts funding and peer review
At The Scotsman, Euan McColm writes about the controversy surrounding Creative Scotland’s grant to artist Ellie Harrison, who will live in Glasgow for a year without leaving, in order to personally document what is known in social science as the ‘Glasgow effect’ … read more
AJBlog: For What It’s Worth Published 2016-01-13

Reasons for moving
One of the challenges of connecting aesthetics and “beauty” to arts organizations is that aesthetics and reason work on different terms. We all know the “reasons” to do things as a cultural manager … read more
AJBlog: The Artful Manager Published 2016-01-13

The Tales They Tell
Big Dance Theater and Noche Flamenca dissect and reconnect narratives. … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2016-01-13

My world, and welcome to it
On Tuesday afternoon I was sitting in the auditorium of Chicago’s Court Theatre, watching Charlie Newell reblock the final scene of his production of Satchmo at the Waldorf, which opens there on Saturday. Midway through… … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2016-01-13

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Art for Art’s Sake Revisited
One of my most widely read (and/or infamous) posts is Art for Art’s Sake: There’s No Such Thing. The thrust of that essay was that art always does something and is always for someone and … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2016-01-12

How all classical concerts should be
Dancing violinist! Pandemonium in the audience!
Here’s a story from my friend David Snead, formerly Vice President of Marketing, Brand and Customer Experience at the New York Philharmonic. And now President and CEO of the Handel and Haydn Society, the plainly terrific chorus and period instrument orchestra in Boston. … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2016-01-12

Thought for Morton Feldman’s Birthday
As late as 1986, the year before his death, he confessed, “I have no complaints about my career, but I always wondered why it really doesn’t take hold.” … read more
AJBlog: PostClassic Published 2016-01-12

“You can’t do what you want, but anything goes”
Wow – speaking of Julius Eastman and Morton Feldman, the SUNY Buffalo Music Library has made available the tape and a transcript of the speech John Cage made at June in Buffalo in 1975, when … read more
AJBlog: PostClassic Published 2016-01-12

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When Libraries Realize That The Most Valuable Thing They Own Isn’t Their Collections
Remember when the internet came along and everyone wondered whether there would still be a use for libraries? Oddly, just as the question was being called, in the early 2000s there was a building boom… … read more
AJBlog: diacritical Published 2016-01-11

A Boomerang at the Metropolitan Museum
Stay tuned this afternoon for a strange and perhaps (a little) juicy announcement from the Metropolitan Museum of Art*. When trustees meet late this afternoon, one item on the agenda  … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2016-01-11

Time Remembered: A Bill Evans Film
Time Remembered, a film about pianist Bill Evans (1929-1980), is being screened in selected showings around the United States. It is set for tomorrow, Tuesday, evening in San Diego, California. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-01-11

Charlotte Moorman to Get a Full-Dress Close-Up
On a visit I made years ago to Northwestern University’s Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections its curator at the time, Russell Maylone, showed me a room piled high with ramshackle boxes that had… … read more
AJBlog: Straight|Up Published 2016-01-11

Antiquities and ISIS: Something Doesn’t Add Up
I care deeply about cultural heritage, and have spent much time over the last year agonizing about the destruction caused by ISIS in the Middle East. The last thing I want is for ISIS to … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2016-01-10

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Recent Listening: Houston Person, Bren Plummer

The descent into order
Anyone who took physics or wore a black turtleneck and smoked clove cigarettes will know about ‘entropy’ – the tendency of a system to descend into disorder, to lose working energy over time. … read more
AJBlog: The Artful Manager Published 2016-01-07

Making the World Safe for Julius
Julius [Eastman] is not someone you spring on an unsuspecting public unprepared: how do you warn a wide audience that you’re performing pieces with titles like Crazy N… … read more
AJBlog: PostClassic Published 2016-01-07

Cribbing from Frankie
I have never been one to post lists of what I’m listening to lately, for quite a number of reasons. One is that it would often be embarrassing. Right now I’m driving around listening to … read more
AJBlog: PostClassic Published 2016-01-07

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When you can afford the very best
A thought experiment: suppose you are in a middle-class household, around the median income. What goods and services do you purchase and enjoy that are the very finest available, such that people in the top … read more
AJBlog: For What It’s Worth Published 2016-01-05

Public Policy and Community Engagement
Over a two month period last year, TRG Arts and Engaging Matters partnered on a series of posts examining relationship building as the foundation of effective fundraising, marketing, and community engagement. … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2016-01-05

Will Venice Sell Art to Stay Afloat?
On Jan. 1, I wasn’t paying too much attention to the news, but The Wall Street Journal posted an article that day that should not go unremarked. … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2016-01-05

New Year’s “Resolutions,” Pasternak Edition: What Artworld Uncertainties Should Be Resolved in 2016?
This is the second in my series of how thorny artworld issues that vexed us in 2015 could achieve satisfying resolution in the year ahead: … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2016-01-06

Memories of Boulez
So many memories came to me when I read that Pierre Boulez had died. One was something he did when I saw him conduct once at Carnegie Hall. Can’t remember which piece it was … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2016-01-06

Boulez est mort
I have little to say, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to use a headline I’ve been holding in reserve for three decades. When I interviewed Pierre Boulez in Chicago in 1987, we touched … read more
AJBlog: PostClassic Published 2016-01-06

Passings: Paul Bley, Natalie Cole
Pianist Paul Bley died on Sunday. He was 83. His family announced his death through ECM Records … Natalie Cole died last Saturday at the age of 65. At first, she was reluctant to become a professional singer for fear of comparison with the success of her father … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-01-05

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Is Earning Making Money The New Audience-Building Strategy?
Maybe it’s obvious, but in the for-profit world, making money is the point; profit defines success. In the non-profit world, the relationship between profit and success is more complicated. “Profit” (or balancing the books) is… … read more
AJBlog: diacritical Published 2016-01-04

New Year’s “Resolutions,” Cosby Edition: What Artworld Uncertainties Should Be Resolved in 2016?
Last year left the artworld on edge, with several dramatic, unresolved cliffhangers. Here’s hoping that some of the thorny issues that vexed us in 2015 achieve satisfying resolution in the year ahead. … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2016-01-04

Monday Recommendation: Susie Arioli
Susie Arioli, Spring (Spectra Musique). A longtime favorite in Canada, Susie Arioli’s fame could spread abroad on the strength of her singing in this collection. Indeed, strength is a fair description of her work, … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-01-04

Joey Alexander: Genius?
Mozart is the archetype of the child musical genius. Over the centuries, many successors have been proclaimed. In the long run, few have qualified. The current child-genius nominee is Joey Alexander, a pianist from Bali. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-01-04

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Happy Birthday, and What That Means

Year-End Poll Results
Again this year, I swore off voting in what has become an epidemic of jazz popularity contests, also known as critics polls, with one exception. I don’t seem to be able to say no to … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-12-30

Cruising the Moskwa
Occasional Rifftides Moscow correspondent Svetlana Ilicheva (pictured) sent a report that may bring summer memories to those of us in the grip of the northern hemisphere winter. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-12-30

Screw Conventions
Liturgy’s new album, The Ark Work, wins the number one ‘avant’ album of 2015 over at Rolling Stone. They even mention John Luther Adams in the description. It is a remarkably original album, strongly compositional, and apparently … read more
AJBlog: PostClassic Published 2015-12-30

Snapshot: the original 1952 London production of South Pacific
A complete archival multi-camera sound film of the original London production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific, starring Mary Martin. The production, directed by Joshua Logan, was a reproduction of the original Broadway staging. … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2015-12-30

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