Category: AJBlogs

Place, process and making your own reservation
When we asked Chief Executive Program: Community and Culture leaders what they saw as the most pressing issues in their field, many told us that they’d like to address the siloization of arts in communities … read more
AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2015-12-10

Beyond Financials
How might we, as leaders in the cultural sector, be critical, formative drivers of building the vision for a new economy? … read more
AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2015-12-10

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You Gotta Know Why
Communities, funders and the environment all shift over time. Arts and culture organizations can get stuck in patterns of doing and being. How might we change so that we remain relevant when our communities change? … read more
AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2015-12-09

Skorton Meets the Press: Outreach, Public Input, “Trade Secrets”
In his cautious comments yesterday during an hour-long appearance at the National Press Club, Washington, David Skorton, the Smithsonian Institution’s new secretary, seemed to be guided by his expressed belief that “the first thing in nonprofit leadership is to do no harm. … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-12-09

Intimations of the Unseen Haunt the Seen
It’s very dark down here. This is not how we’re used to entering New York Live Arts’ black-box theater: down the stairs, walking along a narrow corridor at the edge of the performing area. There are a couple of people with flashlights, but they don’t fully light the way. Is this a birth canal of sorts? And into what? … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2015-12-09

Weekend Listening Tip: Taylor And Clements & A Video
Four young veterans of Seattle’s busy jazz scene will be featured in Jim Wilke’s Jazz Northwestbroadcast on Sunday afternoon. Wilke recorded the new group headed by saxophonist Mark Taylor and pianist Dawn Clement at the recent Earshot Jazz Festival. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-12-09

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The Ideation Summit: Transforming Stakeholders into Collaborators
Conversations about critical issues happen all the time. Conferences, blogs and community meetings offer any number of opportunities to raise and share experiences with these issues. And yet, we experience seemingly endless discussion with little discernible progress towards shared solutions. … read more
AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2015-12-08

Driving While …
An October article in the New York Times presented research into the nature of the African-American experience of police traffic stops. … This blog is about the arts and community engagement so one might think the issue is not relevant. But any effort to connect with new communities demands understanding those communities. … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2015-12-08

Cautionary words
You might think – given my views on the future of classical music – that I’d welcome what I heard at the Kennedy Center Friday night, when the National Symphony played Ben Folds’ Piano Concerto …  … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2015-12-08

The Ailey Dancers Welcome In the Holidays
During the curtain call at City Center that followed the world premiere of Robert Battle’s Awakening, the twelve members of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater joined the audience in clapping enthusiastically for him. … This was the first new dance made for the AAADT by its artistic director. … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2015-12-08

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The Innovation Imperative (But Will It Get Us An Audience?)
Recently, an orchestra manager told me that his orchestra was going to be “the most innovative orchestra in the world.” I asked what he was doing that was so innovative, and he rattled off  …read more
AJBlog: diacritical Published 2015-12-07

BID’s Skid: Sotheby’s Poaches Christie’s Marc Porter, While Stock Hits a 52-Week Low
Could Marc Porter be the turnaround artist that Sotheby’s urgently needs? If so, it may not be soon enough: “Because of a non-compete clause,” writes Kelly Crow for the Wall Street Journal, Porter won’t assume … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-12-07

Monday Recommendation: Brad Mehldau
Mehldau assembled this five-hour account of his solo piano mastery from tapes of concerts he played from 2004 to 2014. Applying the power of his technique and the … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-12-07

The Trumpet: A History. A Demonstration.
Trumpet virtuoso Bobby Shew sent a history of his instrument. The trumpet started as a weapon of war. It later became a signal/alert tool. This led it to become utilized for fanfare announcements. It then … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-12-08

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War games

They just don’t do it
“They”means conductors. “Don’t do it” means that when they conduct Lulu, they don’t follow the markings in Berg’s score. I’ve posted about that, after seeing the movie-theater stream of the Met’s new Lulu. But now I’ve gotten the Lulu full score from the Juilliard library,  … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2015-12-03

So you want to see a show?
Here’s my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2015-12-03

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Nicole Johänntgen
The Rifftides staff does not plan to observe the season by loading the blog with jazz versions of Christmas songs. There may be exceptions. The first exception is a video brought to our attention  … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-12-02

Say Hello to A Better Goodbye
An interviewer recently asked me about influences. I told her about a number of journalists in Chicago back in the day. Among them was John Schulian, a sportswriter whose 1,000-word columns four times a week … read more
AJBlog: Straight|Up Published 2015-12-02

Snapshot: a 1961 TV interview with Otto Klemperer
Otto Klemperer is interviewed by John Freeman on Face to Face, originally telecast on the BBC in 1961. … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2015-12-02

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Relationships All the Way Down
Two months ago, Jill Robinson and Amelia Nothrup-Simpson of TRG Arts and I (OK: the commercial – of ArtsEngaged) began exploring the fact that almost every important facet of arts administration is (or should be) rooted in developing and maintaining relationships with external constituencies, what I would call “communities.” This post brings that series to a close. However, see the note at the end about what the future holds. … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2015-12-01

A Fitting and Fun Christmas Art Initiative
Many American museums ignore Christmas – except for the cards and gifts they sell in their shops and, sometimes, secular decorations. So I was pleasantly surprised to learn today of a new effort at the National Gallery … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2015-12-01

Monday Recommendation: Joseph Woodard On Charles Lloyd
Josef Woodard’s book about Charles Lloyd is more akin to a long conversation than a biography. A veteran jazz journalist and practicing musician, Woodard uses his story-telling and research skills to trace the saxophonist’s life … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-11-30

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The Mass Market Ain’t What It Used To Be (And What That Means For The Arts)
What does it mean to “engage with an audience”? It’s a fundamental question for anyone who makes anything. Whether it’s a political party trying to win votes, Coke trying to sell drinks, an entrepreneur trying to sell drinks, an entrepreneur trying to sell an idea, or a theatre trying to sell tickets. … read more
AJBlog: diacritical Published 2015-11-30

“Mission Accomplished”? Izabela Depczyk Out as Publisher of ARTnews
Arriving last week, my December issue of ARTnews magazine included an inserted letter, signed by Izabela Depczyk, publisher and CEO of Artnews S.A., informing subscribers that “ARTnews will be a quarterly publication, publishing four issues a year,” beginning this February. … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-11-30

On the First Day of Christmas, ABT Brought Costa Mesa a Lovely Nutcracker
Kevin McKenzie, Gillian Murphy and others discussed Alexei Ratmansky’s The Nutcracker with me for California’s Coast magazine this month. The heralded production left the Brooklyn Academy of Music to establish a new home in Costa Mesa beginning December 10th. … read more
AJBlog: Fresh Pencil Published 2015-11-30

Scrapping of Maurer Show Revealed As National Academy Finally Announces Director’s Resignation
The National Academy’s very belated official statement announcing the resignation of director Carmine Branagan and the appointment of Maura Reilly has just hit my inbox, in the same form that I reported to you last Tuesday. … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-11-30

Dan Brubeck Quartet At The Seasons
Dan Brubeck, the drummer among Dave Brubeck’s five musician sons, took his own quartet into The Seasons Performance Hall in Yakima, Washington, last night. As did his band’s recent album, the concert paid tribute to … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-11-29

December Spinout: Links, Letters, Libraries
Van Gogh’s Letters by Nicole Kraus “In Jewish mysticism, the empty space — the Chalal Panui, in Hebrew — has tremendous importance, because it was the necessary pre-condition for God’s creation of the world.  … read more
AJBlog: blog riley Published 2015-11-30

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Got Miami Week Blues? A New Twist