Category: AJBlogs

Is it time to resurrect the artistic leader discretionary fund?

After decades of watching the nonprofit professional theater sector play musical chairs with leadership positions, a number of top posts have gone to women, or people of color, or others who, though mid-career in many cases, are taking the helm of an institution for the first time. I am advocating for a genuine discretionary fund that says, “Welcome to your new job! We don’t care how you choose to spend this money, we are backing you.” — Diane Ragsdale

Your Last Supper?

I’d never heard of cicerchie, or grass peas, so I read it was “an ancient pulse” — nice vampiric phrase — and that the recipe for Zuppa di cicerchie (Grass Pea Soup)is similar to those from Umbria and places not too far. I went through the inviting text and cooked the otherwise ordinary recipe in my head, but when I got to the end-note, I stopped … — Jeff Weinstein

Catching Up to the Past

Buckle your seatbelt and fire up your time machine. You are about to blast yourself back nearly fifty years to a simpler time when America was at war, the country was polarized, a crazed and despised president of the United States was in charge, cops were considered racist pigs, cannabis was omnipresent, and young radicals feared that racism was imminent. — Jan Herman

Bang on a Can composer Julia Wolfe ignites the New York Philharmonic

The new Julia Wolfe multi-media oratorio Fire in my mouth commemorates the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in a spirit that can make critics cringe preemptively. How many socially responsible pieces have implored us to weep, pray and feel guilty to what amounts to a pathos-laden film score? Instead, this piece was a breakthrough, something perfectly in step with 2019, with smartly-channeled passion that carries the promise of speaking to listeners well beyond our time. — David Patrick Stearns