It’s “live coding” and it’s already happening. “The code on display is used to control software algorithms. The musician synthesizes individual noises (snare hits, bass blobs) on their computer, then instructs the software to string those instrumental sounds together based on a set of predefined rules. What comes out bears the fingerprint of the artist but is shaped entirely by the algorithms.” – Wired
Tag: 03.26.19
Could Michelle Obama’s Book Become The Bestselling Memoir Of All Time?
“According to publisher Penguin Random House, [Becoming] has sold more than 10 million copies — including hardcover, audiobooks and e-books — since its November release. That puts it near the top, if not the pinnacle, of all-time memoir sales.” It’s already the top-selling hardcover of last year, and it has outsold both of her husband’s books put together. – The Washington Post
Choreographer Ann Carlson Makes Her First ‘Dancey-Dance’ In Ages
“Ann Carlson is not the type of a choreographer who makes what are known as dancey-dances. Steps aren’t really her thing. She works with everyday movement, text and props. She has choreographed works for lawyers, fly fisherman, basketball players and even … a flock of sheep. … With Elizabeth, the Dance, created for the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company in Salt Lake City, she’s not only working with trained dancers, but she’s also examining the art form itself.” – The New York Times
Why Are We So Fascinated By Ruins?
Like all architecture, abandoned and ruined spaces are animated by what people want from them. They can be massive economic boons or cynical attempts to cloak a neighborhood’s rapid socioeconomic transformation. They can also be powerful symbols and drivers of community engagement. – Fast Company
Hawai’i’s Last Monarch Was Also Its Most Important Composer
Queen Lili’uokalani steered her people through the difficult period of annexation and prevented a war — and she was also a highly trained musician who wrote some 200 songs (the most famous of them being “Aloha ‘Oe”) that became the foundation of modern Hawaiian music and a bulwark against the onslaught of mainland American culture. – Smithsonian Magazine
Bournemouth Symphony Started An Orchestra For Disabled People. A Year Later, Here’s What They’ve Learned
One of the aims of the ensemble is to show young disabled people that they can pursue a career in music. As percussion player Philip Howells said: “Don’t lost sight of who you want to be to begin with. When people say that you should be a butcher or a gymnast, just think to yourself ‘what do I want to be deep down?’, that’s my moral.” – ClassicFM
The Literary Agency That’s Made A Business Out Of Trump Administration Tell-All Memoirs
Ever since Keith Urbahn and Matt Latimer persuaded James Comey to write what became A Higher Loyalty, edited the manuscript, and worked a skillful media campaign around it, their agency, Javelin, “[has] become a popular destination for Trump administration officials, especially those contemplating an exit — ‘and they all are, by the way,’ Urbahn [said]. … Their central insight is that that hoary old fixture of Washington self-promotion, the tell-all, may be the ideal solution to the very new problem of post-Trump rehabilitation.” – The New York Times Magazine
Downtown Theater Finds Itself On Broadway (And Finds That It’s Not All That Different)
Young Jean Lee’s Straight White Men, Taylor Mac’s Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus, Heidi Schreck’s What the Constitution Means to Me, Anais Mitchell’s Hadestown, Daniel Fish’s very revisionist Oklahoma! — all are in the Off-Off-Broadway mode of messing with both the form and content of conventional theater, and all are or have been on Broadway (the ultimate conventional theater ecosystem) this season. And such recent Broadway successes as A Doll’s House, Part 2 and Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 have a similar pedigree. Diep Tran talks to the creators of these works about crossing the downtown-uptown (non-)divide. – American Theatre
What It’s Like To Sing Wagner’s ‘Ring’ With The Met’s Mammoth ‘Machine’
Christine Goerke (Brünnhilde) and Greer Grimsley (Wotan) talk about working on, with, and around director Robert Lepage’s big, complicated contraption — and how it’s been changed in the sixe years since it was new. (For one thing, it’s much safer, and so, says Goerke, “it’s really kind of fun.”) – New York Observer
Why China’s Biggest Film Superstar Was Disappeared (And How She’s Slowly Coming Back)
Fan Bingbing’s place atop China’s movie pantheon is hard to describe to Westerners; she’s sort of a combination Jennifer Lawrence-Nicole Kidman-Julia Roberts-Sandra Bullock. (In the West, she’s appeared in the X-Men and Iron Man franchises.) Very suddenly last year, she vanished from public view, she was loudly denounced in a few official media outlets, and her ongoing projects were put on hold. Journalist May Jeong looks into the reason for her precipitous fall and the warning it sent to the entire Chinese film industry. – Vanity Fair