Tag: 07.15.20

Atlanta’s Woodruff Center CEO Steps Down

Doug Shipman said he informed the Woodruff in February of his intentions to leave after three years of leading the organization. The Woodruff Arts Center is Atlanta’s foundational arts organization, overseeing the High Museum of Art, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Alliance Theatre. It is the third-largest arts center in the United States. Shipman said he wants to be more directly involved in addressing injustices of the past and present. “I do not know exactly what pathway I will take, and I will need friends to help me navigate the road ahead,” he said. – ArtsATL

Will Self: Zooming Into Dystopia?

“In the 15 years between the inception of a fully-integrated bi-directional digital medium—the internet—and the onset of the coronavirus pandemic bringing with it imposed social distancing, viewing the world through screens has become second nature to all of us. The terms of physical meeting have been more profoundly altered than they ever were by train timetables or wristwatches: the absolute location, together with the universal synchronisation afforded by mobile phones, enables both the place and the time of a prospective rendezvous to be continually recalibrated.” – Prospect

Now Here’s A Black Female Composer Worth Rediscovering: W.E.B. Du Bois’s Wife

Shirley Graham Du Bois notched up plenty of achievements in her own right beyond the activism she shared with her husband: she was a novelist, playwright, biographer (of Paul Robeson, Booker T. Washington, and Egyptian president Gamal Abdul Nasser), and radical who (in)famously joined the American Communist Party. But when she studied at the Sorbonne, her subject was music. The premiere run of her 1932 opera Tom-Tom was an enormous spectacle that drew audiences of 25,000 (the planned transfer to Madison Square Garden was derailed by the Depression), and David Patrick Stearns says a revival would be very worthwhile. – WQXR (New York City)

Turmoil At SFMoMA As Chief Curator Resigns

Gary Garrels is the fifth senior official at SFMOMA to depart over the past few weeks. Also gone are Nan Keeton, deputy director of external affairs; Marisa Robisch, director of human resources; Cindi Hubbard, manager of recruitment; and Ann von Germeten, chief marketing and communications officer. But the departures are not enough to assuage an activist group that calls itself xSFMOMA. In an open letter published Wednesday, July 15, the group of unnamed former employees demanded that the board also remove Benezra for his own culpability. – San Francisco Chronicle

Let’s Use COVID Shutdown To Bring Major Reforms To Theatre, Criticism

“Bad habits may be broken. Theater companies large and small will be weaned off the conservative commercial values of Broadway, freed of the timidity of white theater artists and audiences who are interested in seeing shows that assert their rectitude. Enough stage works that chronicle families under pressure. Where are the innovative scripts that explore thorny issues of race, corruption, income inequality, starvation, gender, global warming, philosophy, metaphysics?” – Arts Fuse

Portland Artist Space Suspends, Turns Its Building Over To Native Americans

Under its new ownership, Yale Union will be christened the Center for Native Arts and Cultures, serving as the new national headquarters for the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation. “This repatriation is symbolic in that it’s not often, or perhaps has never happened, where the owners just hand over a building to a Native organization,” T. Lulani Arquette, the CEO of the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, told Artnet News. – Artnet

Jazz Trumpeter Eddie Gale Dead At 78

“Gale walked on jazz’s cutting edge from his childhood. He was taught to play trumpet by bebop legend Kenny Dorham; as a teenager in the 1950s, he jammed with such titanic figures as Art Blakey and Jackie McLean; and he joined the Sun Ra Arkestra at 21. In addition to Ra, with whom he would work until the mid-1980s, Gale appeared on iconic and important recordings by Cecil Taylor and Larry Young before releasing two highly acclaimed albums of his own in the late 1960s on Blue Note Records. … Relocating from New York to San Jose in 1972, Gale built … a strong profile as an educator … [and] a passionate advocate and activist for musicians’ health and wellness.” – JazzTimes

Public Radio Ratings Plunge

Broadcast ratings for nearly all of NPR’s radio shows took a steep dive in major markets this spring, as the coronavirus pandemic kept many Americans from commuting to work and school. The network’s shows lost roughly a quarter of their audience between the second quarter of 2019 and the same months in 2020. – NPR