“[Hans Abrahamsen’s] right hand had only two fingers capable of playing the [piano], and he could not advance. A family friend suggested he take up the French horn, which could be mastered with one hand, so he did. In his music, Mr. Abrahamsen uses restraints as opportunities for creative exploration.”
Tag: 03.13.16
Where Charges Of Cultural Appropriation Go Wrong
David Copelin: “The belief prevalent in some quarters that, given my background, I can’t write authentically about a character from another background, is a plain old attempt at censorship. … There is such a thing as artistic empathy. Similarly, consider the commonplace ‘It’s our story and you have no right to write it.’ I certainly have no right to write it instead of you, but I’m not asking for that and never would.”
Why “Safe” Spaces Are Antithetical To Good Ideas
“It is always tempting to say that this is not a good time for ideas. Though people hold them or dismiss them, promote them or disparage them, ideas often seem unstable. Often we think we are debating an idea only to discover that it no longer means what we thought it meant. We proclaim our affection for equality, autonomy, liberation, authenticity only to find that the meanings of those words and the concepts they name have changed into something unrecognizable.”
Study: People Who Speak More Than One Language Are More Intuitive
“Interpreting someone’s utterance often requires attending not just to its content, but also to the surrounding context. What does a speaker know or not know? What did she intend to convey? Children in multilingual environments have social experiences that provide routine practice in considering the perspectives of others: They have to think about who speaks which language to whom, who understands which content, and the times and places in which different languages are spoken.”
There’s Finally An Artist At The Helm Of L.A. Music Center
“In an hour’s conversation, she” – Rachel Moore, a retired ABT corps member – “tirelessly emphasized that the business of the Music Center was art. Budgets were barely mentioned, and when they were it was with a skilled performer’s roll of her eyes and an engaging laugh. Instead, Moore avidly presented her broad artistic vision for a performing arts center that desperately needs one.”
When Opera Productions Turn Into Art Installations
“Instead of consistently cooperating with the opera, the staging challenged it.” David Patrick Stearns considers William Kentridge’s Metropolitan Opera production of Lulu and Chas Rader-Shieber’s Curtis/Opera Philadelphia staging of Capriccio: “Too often, poetic ambiguity can seem like a smoke screen, insurance of sorts that if the operagoers are kept guessing, they won’t pass judgment.”
More Of A.O. Scott On Why Critics And Criticism Matter
“We trivialise art. We venerate nonsense. We can’t see past our own bullshit. Enough of that! It’s the job of art to free our minds, and the task of criticism to figure out what to do with that freedom.”
English National Opera Chorus Reveals Its First Labor Action Against Wage Cuts
There’s a chorus-heavy opera this week for which they say they’ll stand silently and refuse to sing 25% of the score – to match the 25% pay cut they’re being asked to take.
Young People Have Been Getting More Depressed For 80 Years
“Generally speaking, sweepingly pessimistic statements about society should be taken with a grain of salt. … Sometimes, though, there are exceptions. … Ever since the 1930s, young people in America have reported feeling increasingly anxious and depressed. And no one knows exactly why.”
So, This Canadian Screen Award Ceremony Turned Out To Be Kind Of Painful
“It will take more than a good name to compensate for the frustrations of trying to celebrate talent in an often undervalued industry in a country without a real star system. Those frustrations were on full display Sunday during the CBC telecast of the awards, a two-hour show that featured as many head-scratching moments as it did high points.”