Poet Released From Prison After Royal Pardon

“A Qatari poet jailed for 15 years for reciting verses that praised the 2011 uprising in Tunisia and criticised his own country’s ruling family has been freed after receiving a royal pardon.” Muhammad Ibn al-Dheeb al-Ajami’s release “came days before Qatar hosts two international press freedom conferences.”

How This Guy Stole A Rare Strad Violin Is Simple. But WHY He Stole It (And Got Away With It Is Another Question Altogether)

“The crime defies logic. The young violinist, with so much ahead of him, brazenly acts while the master mingles in the next room. He leaves town under a cloud of suspicion. And even as he squanders his career, he refuses to reveal his secret. This delicate, hand-crafted masterpiece of wood and gut strings is his to possess, to play, to imprison.”

How They Found The Music Circuit In Our Brains

“[Researchers] played a total of 165 commonly heard natural sounds to ten subjects willing to be rolled into an fMRI machine to listen to the piped-in sounds. The sounds included a man speaking, a songbird, a car horn, a flushing toilet, and a dog barking. None sparked the same population of neurons as music.” (includes video)

Top Posts From AJBlogs 03.16.16

Failure is an Option?
When conducting recent audience research with colleagues last year, we were stricken to hear from local teens that failure isn’t an option for them. With such a concentrated focus on … read more
AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2016-03-16

Who is Allowed to Fail?
A few weeks ago I helped one of our community chefs fill out a $5,000 loan application to kickstart his own business. I emphasized to him that his proposal would … read more
AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2016-03-16

Diversity and Genuine Engagement
In February Malesha Taylor posted “Is Your Theatre Only ‘Diverse and Inclusive’ Twice a Year?“, a meditation on diversity initiatives, outreach, and inclusiveness, on HowlRound. There were so many spot on observations it’s hard to … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2016-03-15

Critical Takeaways From The Taft’s Daubigny Show
“The puzzle I had was, how did an artist who grew up studying Rembrandt and observing the landscapes of Corot and Rousseau end up painting like an Impressionist?” That is Lynne Ambrosini, the director of collections … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2016-03-16

When Lloyd Met Shoemake
Yesterday’s post about Charles Lloyd’s birthday brought this communiqué from vibraharpist and pianist Charlie Shoemake. Thought you and your readers might get a chuckle out of this 1957 photo of Charles Lloyd and Charlie Shoemake … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-03-16

At 79, Charles Lloyd Is At A New Peak
This is a busy week for birthdays. We can’t observe them all, but yesterday Quincy Jones’s 83rd was a must, and today is saxophonist and flutist Charles Lloyd’s 78th. More or less coincidentally with his … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-03-15

[ssba_hide]