“I’m perfectly willing to concede that tonal music, with its reliance on conventionalized expectation-forming patterns derived, in not very direct ways, from the harmonic series lends itself more naturally to human apprehension than post-common-practice music. But that’s beside the point of music’s importance as a human endeavor, isn’t it? “
Tag: 03.10.10
‘Circus For The Facebook Generation’
“[T]he performers [of Canada’s] Les 7 Doigts de la Main don’t just dazzle by flying between poles; they offer up snippets of personal information as they irritate, bond and flirt with each other. They are so human, it feels all the more astonishing when they hurl themselves off poles. … [The Australian troupe] Circa’s show, meanwhile, strips back circus to a basic manipulation of form and space to create something akin to sculpture.”
Bauhaus Still In Our House After All These Years
The school itself lasted only 14 years, spent in three different cities. Yet its teachers included some of the great names of 20th-century art and design (Gropius, Kandinsky, Schlemmer, Mies Van Der Rohe, Klee). And its ideas are all round us: “Go into any IKEA superstore and you will see a sort of Bauhaus-Lite: knock-down shelving, lightweight furniture, geometrical lamps, bright colors, abstract patterns.”
Edo De Waart To Leave Hong Kong Phil
The Dutch conductor, who has been at the helm of the HKPO since 2004, steps down at the end of his current contract in 2012. He now makes his home in Wisconsin, where he is music director of the Milwaukee Symphony; in 2010 he begins a stint as artistic partner of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.
Will Kids Get The Bard Better If They Don’t Have To Sit Still?
“Exercises devised by the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Globe theatre in London will see children aged 11 to 14 mirror the methods of professional actors at rehearsal” instead of reading the plays at their desks. “Written and oral assessments developed alongside the lessons will show how well students have understood the texts.”
Royal Opera House To Premiere Anna Nicole Smith Opera
“The work, by composer Mark-Anthony Turnage and writer Richard Thomas, will be ‘a major event in the UK arts calendar’ the ROH said. Thomas was a co-creator of the controversial production Jerry Springer: The Opera.”
Canadian Booksellers Oppose Likely Amazon Incursion
Amazon wants to open a warehouse and shipping center in Canada, and the government is leaning toward approval. “Canadian booksellers have called on Ottawa to reject Amazon’s application, arguing that it would hurt domestic businesses and amount to a scaling back of this country’s protectionist policy toward its cultural sector.”
Film Critic Banned, Outrage Provoked — Why Do We Care?
“Although the charges and counter-charges in this case are pretty salacious, the furor is only partly about [New York Press critic Armond] White and [‘Greenberg’ director Noah] Baumbach. It’s also about the uneasy symbiosis between film critics and the movie business,” and it manages to suggest, “in the face of all available economic evidence, that what we do still matters.”
NYPD: Do Not Worry About The Naked Rooftop People
Antony Gormley is putting 27 life-size figures on rooftops and ledges of Midtown Manhattan buildings. “About the same time that the first figure was placed atop a four-story building at 25th Street and Fifth Avenue on Tuesday, the Police Department issued a statement reassuring New Yorkers that the figures are not despondent people on the verge of leaping to their deaths.”
How Kenneth Anger Resembles His Films
“We meet at a London hotel that smells of cabbage. Anger is 83 years old; his hair is jet black, his shoes red, his trousers tan. One eye is bigger than the other, and his face is unlined. He is both beautiful and grotesque: Warren Beatty meets Frankenstein’s monster.”