Category: AJBlogs

Sudden Departure: Max Anderson Precipitously Leaves Dallas Museum Directorship
This is not how amicable resignations usually happen: The Dallas Museum of Art today announced that its director of less than four years, Maxwell Anderson, “has stepped down as director of the DMA … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-09-28

A Good Show Spoiled
With the weather in New York still fine – and warmish – on Saturday, I ventured up to the New York Botanical Garden for FRIDA: Art, Garden, Life, one of the Garden’s hybrid exhibitions that combines plants and paintings … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2015-09-27

Not the fast car
How do you dance a midlife crisis? Hofesh Shechter is one of Britain’s most popular choreographers – someone who tugs non-dance fans into the theatre, drawn by the meaty savour of whomping percussion and … read more
AJBlog: Performance Monkey Published 2015-09-28

Bud Powell At 91
Here it is nearly the close of Bud Powell’s birthday and I’ve had my nose too close to the grindstone to take note of it. He would have been 91 today. If I had to … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-09-27

Shostakovich and S & M in the Provinces: Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk
Stalin walked out of a performance of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, saying the music was a muddle. This shows only that he … read more
AJBlog: Plain English Published 2015-09-28

Unpacking your piano
My colleagues and I taught a seminar on writing for piano last Friday. Referencing a wide range of thinking going all the way back to Cristofori, we focused mainly on innovations of High Modernism to … read more
AJBlog: Infinite Curves Published 2015-09-28

Darkest Depths of the Soul?
The inconceivable advocacy of a large percentage of Americans for Donald Trump to be the Republican Presidential nominee in 2016 began to make a little more sense upon reading the New York Times critic’s ode to political correctness in his September 25th review of the Metropolitan Opera’s seasonal premiere of Puccini’s Turandot. … read more
AJBlog: OperaSleuth Published 2015-09-28

Enough seen
Mrs. T and I are in Pittsburgh to see a play. Our last visit here took place four years ago, when we flew out to catch a rare revival of Alan Ayckbourn’s House and Garden, … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2015-09-28

[ssba_hide]

From Sweden: Taped and Set Free
AJBlog: DancebeatPublished 2015-09-27

 

Hayes Cannonball Legacy At The Seasons

The suspension of belief
A favorite line from a favorite poem is dogging me these days. It’s from Wallace Stevens’ “Man Carrying Thing“, … read more
AJBlog: The Artful Manager Published 2015-09-24

Seeking wellness in the workplace? Have an impromptu Taylor Swift jam session.
You know how it plays out. You’re watching Wolf of Wall Street and the office run by Jordan Belfore is filled to capacity with drugs, prostitutes and other fun illegal shenanigans … read more
AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2015-09-24

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 2015-09-24

[ssba_hide]

Changing the curriculum
Time now to talk about the curriculum at conservatories, about what classical musicians should learn in their professional education. As I said in an earlier post, this was something I was eagerly asked to speak about at … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2015-09-22

Rorschach Test
We’re all artists now Quick. What’s your reaction to that sentence? This was the title of a September 2015 New York Times article that considered expanded definitions of and options for creativity and the increasingly … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2015-09-22

So Long, Summertime
This is the last day of summer. It would be wrong to let the season get away without a proper sendoff. There are, of course, countless recorded versions of the George Gershwin song from Porgy and Bess … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-09-22

Snapshot: Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas sing a duet at the 1958 Oscars
Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas sing “It’s Great Not to Be Nominated” at the 1958 Academy Awards ceremony. (The song was written for them by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen.) Neither man had been … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2015-09-23

[ssba_hide]

Memories of Marlon Brando
It doesn’t happen often because it can’t. The taste of the madeleine that unleashes a torrent of memories and associations, the thing that makes you stop what you’re doing and plunges you into unexpected reverie. … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrash Published 2015-09-22

Monday Recommendation: Gabriel Alegría Sextet
Trumpeter Gabriel Alegría’s resourceful band of Peruvians and New Yorkers (Newyoruvians?) continue to meld Latin and North American traditions. Their stimulating fifth album alternates between the continents and blends musics … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-09-21

Lookback: on applauding between movements
From 2003: I continue to see obviously excited concertgoers shamefacedly sitting on their hands at the very moment when they ought to be raising a ruckus. What’s more, the concert halls of New York are full of spine-starched prigs who delight in … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2015-09-22

[ssba_hide]

How Not to Save Money
The other day one of the excellent character artists in opera wrote me that he was going into another business: he likes to perform in the United States, but many companies, both large and small, have … read more
AJBlog: OperaSleuth Published 2015-09-21

American Festival of Microtonal Music
We have a very busy week here, with the American Festival of Microtonal Music coming to town. Curated by two of our alumni, the festival has three concerts in three different venues on consecutive nights … read more
AJBlog: Infinite Curves Published 2015-09-21

LARB Video Interview: Miles on William S. Burroughs
Dunno how my tireless staff of thousands missed this. It’s as striking a summary of Burroughs’s life and writing as I’ve seen. His best biographer gives a sense of the man and his work that … read more
AJBlog: Straight|Up Published 2015-09-21

[ssba_hide]

Rethinking Displays: My Q&A with Salort-Pons, Detroit Institute’s New Director—Part …
AJBlog: CultureGrrlPublished 2015-09-20

 

Tripping With Andy
AJBlog: Straight|UpPublished 2015-09-20

 

Growth, Death, Rebirth
AJBlog: DancebeatPublished 2015-09-19

 

Paul Desmond: Whimsy At Monterey
AJBlog: RiffTidesPublished 2015-09-18

 

[ssba_hide]

John Perreault, 78
As many of you will now know, the author of this blog, John Perreault, passed away unexpectedly on Sunday, September 6. I first got to know John in the late 1990s when he came to … read more
AJBlog: Artopia Published 2015-09-17

Images within Images within Images
Wayne McGregor’s Tree of Codes turns the Park Avenue Armory into a 21st-century phantasmagoric playground.  read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2015-09-17

Remember that one time, when I blogged?
It’s been a long, long while since I posted to this blog. For those who were annoyed by that, apologies. For those who didn’t notice, hello. Truth is, I’ve been doing other things. … read more
AJBlog: The Artful Manager Published 2015-09-17

Hyperrealism: Chamber Music from Mars
You may not have heard of Noah Creshevsky (born 1945), but he is, and has been for decades, one of the most amazing figures in current American music. His music, all electronic as far as … read more
AJBlog: PostClassic Published 2015-09-17

[ssba_hide]

How the old ways faded
In my last post I said that I’m now not happy talking about the decline of classical music. That post was a striking anecdotal report about falling ticket sales at European music festivals, which … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2015-09-16

Flash: The Detroit Institute of Arts Names New Director
They have replaced Graham Beal as director of the Detroit Institute of Arts, and it’s an inside job. Salvador Salort-Pons, the current curator of European paintings a the DIA, plus–since 2013–director of collection strategies and information, … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2015-09-16

$600-Million Endowment?!? My Q&A with Salort-Pons, Detroit Institute’s New Head—Part I
In an appointment reminiscent of the Art Institute of Chicago’s elevation to its directorship of Douglas Druick  and the Metropolitan Museum’s appointment of Tom Campbell to its top spot, the Detroit Institute of Arts today … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-09-16

a-musing
I’m off to Ann Arbor this weekend to work with violinist Danielle Belén for a recording session. Danielle is one of the newest faculty members in the School of Music at the University of Michigan … read more
AJBlog: Infinite Curves Published 2015-09-16

[ssba_hide]

Where did the creative class come from?
Your humble blogger has been absolutely swamped with a cross-country move and writing about pop culture (mostly) for Salon. I hope to never leave CultureCrash fallow for nearly this long.  … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrash Published 2015-09-15

The Broad Broadsided: Critics Take Aim
No good deed goes unpunished. That adage seems sadly apt when it comes to collector/philanthropist Eli Broad, whose eponymous downtown Los Angeles museum, opening Sept. 20, has already sustained potshots from leading art critics, … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-09-15

Conover Stamp News & When Paquito Met Willis
The campaign for a US postage stamp to honor the late Voice of America Broadcaster Willis Conover has surmounted a bureaucratic hurdle. Maristella Fuestle of the Conover archive at the University of North Texas reports. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-09-15

[ssba_hide]