“Fischer’s current contract [as music director] was set to expire at the end of the 2018-19 season. The new contract will mean Fischer will continue programming and conducting the Utah Symphony’s concerts through the 2021-22 season.”
Tag: 05.24.17
Barbara Smith Conrad, Mezzo-Soprano Who Figured In Civil Rights Struggle, Dead At 79
It in 1957, her first year at U. Texas-Austin – and the first year black students were admitted as undergrads – that Conrad was cast as Dido, opposite a white student, in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. She was harassed not only by white students but also by state legislators, who threatened to withhold funding from the university if she were not replaced.
Museum Of African Art In Paris To Shut Down
“The Musée Dapper in Paris will close its doors next month, with officials citing high costs and low attendance as reasons for shutting the privately funded, non-profit museum of traditional and contemporary African art.”
Hisham Matar’s ‘The Return’ Wins Another Major Award
Just last month, this memoir of the author’s journey to post-Qaddafi Libya in search of his father won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography. Now it has received the £20,000 Rathbones Folio Prize – in the first year the honor has been open to both fiction and nonfiction.
Top Posts From AJBlogs 05.24.17
Pillow Talk
I had planned this post before Trevor O’Donnell wrote this: Is Marketing about the Consumer or the Product? Really I had. … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2017-05-23
Claudia Quintet In Action
As pointed out in a Rifftides review earlier this year, drummer John Hollenbeck’s Claudia Quintet … has unity of thought, purpose and execution more often found in long-lived classical ensembles than in jazz. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2017-05-24
The American Writers Museum? A Dead Letter, Says Deanna Isaacs
“Longer on gadgetry than on literature, AWM is all about the breezy quote and the glitzy busywork toys that are now the currency of the exhibit industry: push a button, spin a wheel, drag an icon, and the gadgets spit out a thimbleful of data. It’s American Lit 101 (and more), the nutshell version. The books? Look up when you first walk in: a lot of them are stapled to a framework hanging just below the ceiling.”
The Mythologies About Neural Benefits Of Music
“There is a gap between the state of research in neuroscience related to music education, and the knowledge of current and future music teachers about these findings,” writes a research team from the Hanover University of Music led by Reinhard Kopiez. It reports instructors are particularly prone to accepting false assertions when they are accompanied by certain brain-related buzzwords.
The Marciano – LA’s Latest Big New Private Museum
Like similar projects in California, Florida, Texas, Connecticut, Maryland and elsewhere, the Marciano Art Foundation isn’t exactly a museum. It’s merely a private collection open to the public. The selection is highly personal. The mission statement is freewheeling (“Through exhibiting a diverse and compelling collection … MAF aims to encourage curiosity and contemplation of art.”) The professional staff is limited, as are public hours.
New Trump Budget Again Eliminates Culture Funding (But It’s Unlikely To Happen)
A spokesperson for the NEA confirms that the president’s 2018 budget proposes the elimination of the department, and includes a request for $29 million from Congress to shut down the agency in an orderly fashion. The spokesperson says that the organization is fully funded for the fiscal year, and will continue to make 2017 grant awards and “honor all obligated grant funds made to date.”
Ex-Mayor Bloomberg Gives $75 Million To New ‘Culture Shed’ On Manhattan’s High Line
“His gift, through his charitable organization Bloomberg Philanthropies, helps solidify what promises to be New York’s first new cultural institution in recent memory, to be completed in spring 2019, that will present performances, concerts, visual art, music and other events. With Mr. Bloomberg’s donation, $421 million will have been raised toward a $500 million capital campaign that includes start-up costs.”