Category: AJBlogs

Making Lulu musical
How to tell if a Lulu performance is going to be musical: Listen carefully to the orchestra in the prologue, the scene with the animal trainer that begins the opera. … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2015-11-24

Leaked Release: National Academy’s Feel-Good Statement on Carmine Branagan’s Departure
The chaotic, unprofessional rollout of the National Academy’s leadership transition (which I chronicled in the above-linked posts) continues with today’s anonymous leak to me of the very overdue, nearly finalized press release, … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-11-24

Other Matters: The Gingko Drops
In front of Rifftides world headquarters is a magnificent gingko tree. The previous owner of the house was a medical missionary in China. When he returned to the United States, he and his family brought the gingko as a sapling. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-11-24

Lookback: Thanksgiving service
From 2004: To be sure, the one thing a new friend can never do for you is say I knew you when, and I find it rather sad that there are so few people in my life who can speak those words. … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2015-11-24

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A Recipe For Trouble At New York City Museum
When more than a half dozen people shake their heads in disbelief at a museum announcement, and make a point of asking me what I think, I’d say it was time to weigh in publicly. … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2015-11-23

Sugarcoating Gonzales-Torres’ Candy: Crystal Bridges Updates from NW Arkansas Business Journal And Me
What has Alice Walton’s generously endowed startup, which just celebrated its fourth anniversary, been up to lately? … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-11-23

Monday Recommendation: Terell Stafford
From his emergence in the early 1990s, Terell Stafford’s conception has drawn on the modern jazz trumpet tradition at large. He has evidently not felt the need to pattern himself on individual predecessors. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-11-23

Sushi for one
I have two good friends who are singletons and claim to actively prefer living alone. It’s hard for me to believe that this avowed preference is anything more than a sign that they’ve yet to meet Mister or Miss Right – which I’m well aware is nothing more than a complete failure of imagination on my part. … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2015-11-23

A Unique Friend
Any regular Seattle Opera attendee might remember hearing several slightly tenorial shouts of Bravo! after an aria or at the end of a performance, a sound that carried over even the most tumultuous applause. … read more
AJBlog: OperaSleuth Published 2015-11-23

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Recent Listening In Brief
Jazz is not dying. I know that because the postman, the Fed Ex driver and the UPS man keep dropping off proof that it’s alive. I can’t keep up with all of the albums they… … read more
AJBlog: RiffTidesPublished 2015-11-22

John Luther Adams makes the earth speak (while tourists cover their ears)
John Luther Adams often seems like an Alaska Impressionist – or so I’ve said in the past, perhaps misleadingly. The implication of that moniker implies pretty-sounding Nordic Debussy, something more descriptive than Sibelius … read more
AJBlog: Condemned to Music Published 2015-11-19

Twyla Tharp: Fifty Years of Making Dances
Twyla Tharp premiered her first work, Tank Dive, on April 29, 1965, in room 1604 of Hunter College’s Art Department (where she was not a student). It was the only dance on the program and lasted four minutes, which she considered to be the longest amount of time she thought she could fill to perfection. Besides, she noted in a 1976 interview, the event was free. Who would have dared complain? … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2015-11-19

Experiments in humanity
The writer Veronica Horwell likes to describe acting as laboratory for human behaviour, and believes that actors try out ways of expressing and inhabiting ideas and emotion. It’s a brilliant idea … read more
AJBlog: Performance Monkey Published 2015-11-19

Whitney Museum’s Adam Weinberg Movingly Mourns Paris Massacre’s Impact on Creative Community
Addressing the press on Tuesday, the Metropolitan Museum’s director, Tom Campbell, had reacted to the Paris massacre forcefully but formally, detailing how his institution had mentored colleagues from countries in crisis. Yesterday, the Whitney Museum’s director, Adam Weinberg, showed how to make it personal and heartfelt. … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-11-19

Liebman And Intra Over The Rainbow
Since I first heard soprano saxophonist David Liebman and the Italian pianist, composer and conductor Enrico Intra play a duet on “Over The Rainbow,” it has been in the back of mind to share it … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-11-19

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Another Rough Night: Sotheby’s Underperforming Sale of Alfred Taubman’s American Art
With a total of $13.04 million (including the buyer’s premium), the auction at Sotheby’s tonight of 31 works from A. Alfred Taubman’s American art collection (eight of which failed to sell) will be of little help in reducing the formidable $95-million gap … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-11-18

Lookback: the death of a president
From 2003: I was a small-town second-grader on November 22, 1963. My teacher, Jackie Grant, told the class that the president had been shot and killed, and then we all went home. For me, home was a block away from the classroom door, but my mother still drove to the school to pick me up, … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2015-11-17

Snapshot: Martha Argerich plays Liszt
Martha Argerich plays Liszt’s Sixth Hungarian Rhapsody on TV in 1966. … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2015-11-18

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Learn-Unlearn
What the field needs to learn and “unlearn” about developing arts audiences by Jill Robinson … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2015-11-17

In the wavelength
Audience engagement – it’s a weak strategy. Never mind that it can seem to work. A friend sent me notes from the National Arts Marketing Project Conference, with details of the Cleveland Public Theater, and its impressive season, full of plays on subjects that just seem to scream contemporary relevance. But still they wanted to boost attendance on slow nights. … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2015-11-17

Tom Campbell of Metropolitan Museum Responds to L’Horreur in Paris (with video)
It wasn’t as scary as the sight of heavily armed police in a bullet-proof vests Saturday night at Lincoln Center … But (without giving away the details) it was clear to me, when I entered the garage of the Metropolitan Museum to attend its press lunch today, that security measures there had been tightened. … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-11-17

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Unveiling Hammershoi, A Worthy Exhibition
While I was away–I traveled to Jordan from Oct. 31 to Nov. 12, more about which another time–a lot happened in the art world, including the New York fall auction season. But before I go there, I want to share my review of an excellent exhibition at Scandinavia House in NYC. … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2015-11-16

Sotheby’s Buyout Bombshell: Turning Towards the “Less-Tenured”
Maybe the Sotheby’s buyout bombshell (first reported Friday by Bloomberg’s Katya Kazakina) shouldn’t have come as a shock: This purge was foreshadowed by CEO Tad Smith’s cryptic cryptic comments in last Monday’s quarterly conference call with stock analysts: … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-11-16

Opera at Old Eli
Doris Yarick Cross for more than thirty years has directed Yale Opera, a division of the Yale School of Music. She and her husband, Richard Cross, serve as the voice teachers for the program, a mammoth task. … read more
AJBlog: OperaSleuth Published 2015-11-16

Clarinets At Grace Cathedral
Over the years, Grace Cathedral on San Francisco’s Nob Hill has hosted countless concerts of importance. Among them, both in 1965, were Duke Ellington’s magnificent Second Sacred Concert and pianist Vince Guaraldi’s Grace Cathedral Concert with his trio and an 86-voice choir. Rifftides reader and veteran audio expert Jim Brown attended last week’s more secular concert at Grace Cathedral. Presented by the SFJazz organization, it featured four clarinetists … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-11-15

Monday Recommendation: Tom Harrell
The fascination of jazz musicians with French impressionist composers goes back at least as far as Bix Beiderbecke. Among contemporary jazz musicians, Tom Harrell is Beiderbecke’s counterpart not only … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-11-16

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Carl Weissner: ‘Always These Nightmares . . .’
Carl Weissner’s novel Death in Paris — first published onlinein 2009, then as a paperback in 2012, and finally as an ebook in 2014 — was about a different kind of death from the… … read more
AJBlog: Straight|UpPublished 2015-11-15

Herschel Day
Today is the 277th birthday of William Herschel, a man who shows us just how vast the change has been in the fortunes of the arts and sciences. Herschel has often been dubbed the Father… … read more
AJBlog: Infinite CurvesPublished 2015-11-15

Dancing to Beat the Reaper
Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion brings three works to the Joyce Theater. Vinson Fraley Jr. and Tamisha Guy in Kyle Abraham’s The Gettin’. Photo: Yi-Chun Wu Seated at a piano in a corner of the Joyce Theater, Kris… … read more
AJBlog: DancebeatPublished 2015-11-14

Weekend Extra: Roses
Here it is the middle of November and the yellow roses are in full splendor. Maybe a horticulturist could explain the phenomenon of such an extended period of bloom, but let’s simply enjoy it and… … read more
AJBlog: RiffTidesPublished 2015-11-14

Cogluotobusisletmesi
The major thrill of my trip to Santa Barbara last week was the chance to spend time with the extraordinary composer Clarence Barlow, who kindly took off an entire day to spend with me (click… … read more
AJBlog: PostClassicPublished 2015-11-13

Taubman’s Revenge? Sotheby’s Gavel-Busting $515-Million Guarantee
My misgivings about how Sotheby’s success in winning the A. Alfred Taubman consignment might backfire, which I voiced early last month in an interview with a British reporter, now appear to be on the money.… … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrlPublished 2015-11-13

Stop all the clocks
Directors have been shuttling between theatre and opera for decades now. Makes sense. Both forms tell stories, establish tension, explore characters and ideas. Ten years after Peter Gelb took charge at the Met, directors… … read more
AJBlog: Performance MonkeyPublished 2015-11-13

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Words that worry me
Audience engagement. Such a buzzphrase in the arts these days. … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2015-11-12

A Small Detail, A Big Idea & Why You Should Care
Let’s marvel at a small detail that reveals a big idea. … read more
AJBlog: Audience Wanted Published 2015-11-12

Opera in Paris
On a ten-day visit to the City of Light I had the opportunity to attend two operas and one superb music rehearsal of three very different works. … read more
AJBlog: OperaSleuth Published 2015-11-12

Not a Dance? Are You Sure?
I plan to iron out the creases and frame the flyer for The Kitchen’s fall season. It’s an art work by Ralph Lemon that also appears in Lemon’s installation and performance there, Scaffold Room. … Oh, it’s a beautiful thing. It’s also as bewitchingly, sometimes infuriatingly enigmatic as Lemon’s staged creation …read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2015-11-12

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Fracking and Arts Marketing
Can’t wait to see where I’m going with this, can you? … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2015-11-10

Twombly Blackboard Helps Sotheby’s Chalk Up a Solid Contemporary Sale
Christie’s, the recent market leader in major contemporary art sales, has less to crow about this week: Its uneven sale last night made Sotheby’s contemporary sale tonight look good. … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-11-11

How do you solve a problem like Leontes?
The problem with this “problem play” [The Winter’s Tale] is: why does he change so suddenly from adoring his childhood friend, Polixenes, King of Bohemia (whose visit has already lasted nine months) to being uncontrollably jealous, and certain that he is having an affair with his wife, Hermione? … If I were directing, I’d explicate the turnabout by making it evident that … read more
AJBlog: Plain English Published 2015-11-11

Veterans Day 2015
For a couple more hours, it is still Veterans Day here in the western United States. I’ve been thinking that I should post something about this American holiday dedicated to the men and women who … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-11-11

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