“The Columbia University School of the Arts has announced that John Luther Adams is the newest recipient of the William Schuman Award, a major recognition given periodically over the past three decades. Named for its first recipient, the award, in the form of a direct, unrestricted grant of $50,000, is one of the largest given to an American composer.”
Tag: 01.08.15
Finally, Good News From Atlanta Symphony: $1.25M For Salaries
“The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s push to rebuild its ranks, a major issue in the stormy nine-week player lockout that delayed the 70th anniversary season, has received a boost in the form of a $1.25 million Musicians’ Endowment Fund pledge.”
In Praise Of Book Publishing’s Gatekeepers
Daniel Menaker: “In my judgment, there are between 20 and 30 editors and publishers in New York who – along with experienced and discriminating publicists, marketers, and sales reps – have over the decades regularly and successfully combined art and commerce and, in the process, have supported and promulgated art. They are in fact the main curators of our life of letters. They have somehow survived the grinding – tectonic – friction between creativity and business and made a go of both. They are cultural heroes, actually.”
Belarusian Publisher On Trial For Publishing Images Of Police Brutality
“Ihar Lohvinau is charged” – nominally – “with selling books from his bookshop in Minsk without the obligatory state registration, and faces a heavy fine and the closure of a store described by the International Publishers Association as ‘a vital hub for the country’s fragile literary community’.”
Sotheby’s And Christie’s Go Back To Guaranteeing Minimum Prices
“[The two auction houses] all but gave up guarantees in late 2008, after the effects of the financial crisis spilled into the art market. … That auction house guarantees have come roaring back, despite the risks, is a reflection of the largely hidden turmoil in the art market.”
You Have Remarkable Music Abilities – You Just Don’t Know About Them Yet
“The more psychologists investigate musicality, the more it seems that nearly all of us are musical experts, in quite a startling sense. The difference between a virtuoso performer and an ordinary music fan is much smaller than the gulf between that fan and someone with no musical knowledge at all. … We aren’t talking about instinctive, inborn universals here. Our musical knowledge is learned.”
Suis-Je Charlie? Philip Gourevitch On The Pen Vs. The Gun
“We like to say – we who work with pens (or pixels) – that the pen (or pixel) is mightier than the sword. Then someone brings a sword (or Kalashnikov) to test the claim, and we’re not so sure. … The truth is – for better and for worse – that, no, most of us, even in the most free of Western societies, are not Charlie.”
Why Charlie Hebdo Matters
Andrew O’Hehir: “Charlie Hebdo is not just some random publication that made fun of Muhammad. It’s something closer to a canary in the coal mine of democracy. It’s a dissident, thorn-in-the-side paper that was once closed down by its own government, in the putative homeland of liberty and equality. It’s a paper that has doggedly sought out the outer edge of acceptable expression, a paper devoted to offending anyone and everyone and to scourging those who hold power over others.”
Half Of UK Stage Directors Earn Less Than £5,000 Per Year
“A survey by the industry group Stage Directors UK found the average salary for directors in subsidised theatres was £10,759, far below the average national wage of £26,500. Some were being paid the equivalent of less than £1 an hour.”
Theatre Artists Are The Ones Really Subsidizing Theatre, And That Should End
Lyn Gardner: “Because although this is about money, it’s not just about money, it’s about the relationships between artists and venues and producers, and a proper and equal relationship between them that is not just a transaction but something that benefits and enriches all.”