“Of the 72 applicants this year, 50 were women; 35 sopranos and 15 mezzo-sopranos. The conservatory decided that even though it would make for skewed student productions, it could not admit male singers on the grounds of gender alone.”
Tag: 03.15.16
Protesters Warn UK Arts Organizations Over Fossil Fuel Sponsorships
“Following news that Tate galleries will end their sponsorship with BP in 2017, one of the leading groups behind the campaign to end the deal has vowed to target other high-profile arts organisations in a bid to sever the relationship between fossil fuel companies and cultural institutions.”
Broadway’s ‘Wicked’ Breaks $1 Billion Barrier
“The long-running musical imagining the Wicked Witch of the West’s back story has just passed the $1 billion mark at the Broadway box office. The musical is one of only three shows ever to reach that milestone.”
Readers Don’t Care About The Literary Quality Of Translations (Do They?)
“Simply, many readers, many critics, don’t notice. Or if they do, don’t particularly care. They read for content. The clamor of idioms about us has become so loud that we hardly notice when a translation, or indeed any piece of prose, is cluttered with incongruities.”
Anita Brookner, 87, Booker Prize-Winning Novelist And Art Historian
“Curiously enough, though Brookner’s art histories bubble with the delight of discovery and joyful exposition, her novels tend to describe a grey milieu of enervated, stranded and tentatively hopeless women.”
Asian-American Academy Members Formally Protest Offensive Skits At Oscars Ceremony
“Twenty-five members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences who are of Asian descent – among them two-time best director Oscar winner Ang Lee and former members of the board of governors Arthur Dong, Don Hall and Freida Lee Mock – have sent a letter to the organization protesting ‘tasteless and offensive skits’ about Asians that were featured on the 88th Academy Awards on Feb. 28.”
World Go Champion Loses Tournament To Computer; Ken Jennings Welcomes Him To The Club
“Like [Garry] Kasparov before me, I now make a reasonable living as a professional human loser. Have rueful sense of own inevitable obsolescence, will travel.”
Ballet Dancers And Oakland Turfers Groove Together On PBS NewsHour
“What started out as a culture clash of dance styles evolved into a close collaboration among 12 dancers and the launch of The Mud Water Project. The project aims to create opportunities for turfers to showcase their art in concert-style settings and to audiences often beyond their reach.” (includes video)
Pointe Prosthesis Lets Ballerina Dance Again After 13 Years
“An amateur ballerina in Brazil, whose lower left leg was amputated after a road accident, has spoken of her joy after becoming among the first people to receive a pointe foot prosthesis allowing her to dance classical ballet again.”
Yannick Nézet-Séguin Undergoes Surgery
“Sunday afternoon he conducted Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 in Verizon Hall, and on Monday Philadelphia Orchestra music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin was at Penn Medicine for surgery.”