“Going to the movies in the U.S. cost an average of $8.61 during the second quarter of 2015, according to exhibition industry trade group the National Association of Theatre Owners. That surpasses the previous high-water mark of $8.38 from the second quarter of 2013. It’s also a 3.4% increase from the year-ago average of $8.33 and a 6% jump from the first quarter average of $8.12.”
Tag: 07.22.15
Conductor Paul Freeman, 79
The December 2000 issue of Fanfare magazine proclaimed Maestro Freeman “one of the finest conductors our nation has produced.” Freeman led several recordings by both the Chicago Sinfonietta and Czech National Symphony, including his landmark three volume African Heritage Symphonic Series for Cedille Records.
National Library Of France Employee Arrested For Thefts Of Engravings
“The French police have detained a low-level employee of the National Library of France in connection with the disappearance of a collection of 43 engravings by 16th-century artists valued at up to $4.4 million. It was the second theft uncovered at the library this year.”
What Will Restored U.S.-Cuba Relations Mean For Ballet?
“Cuban dancers and the Ballet Nacional de Cuba, founded by Alicia Alonso, are known all over the world. … Here & Now’‘s Meghna Chakrabarti spoke with José Manuel Carreño, a Cuban-born former principal dancer with the American Ballet Theater, who is now artistic director of Silicon Valley Ballet.” (audio)
Top Posts From AJBlogs 07.22.15
AftA Thoughts 2015: Bait and Switch
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2015-07-21
Losses: Rumsey, Alexander, Taylor
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-07-21
Reemergence
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2015-07-22
Snapshot: Ravi Shankar appears on The Hollywood Palace
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2015-07-22
[ssba_hide]
Chinese Curator Stole 140 Works, Replaced Them With His Own Fakes
“Xiao Yuan, 57, a curator at Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in southern China, sold 125 of the exhibits for more than 34m yuan (£4m, $6m). In his defence, he told Guangzhou People’s Intermediate Court there were already fakes in the storeroom when he started work there.”
Ai Weiwei Gets His Passport Back
He said on Wednesday that the authorities had given him no indication of why he had received his passport now. “I only can say why not? They have promised for the past four years to give it back. Now finally they gave it to me,” he said in a telephone interview. “They always say it’s in the process but I just need to be patient.”
FCC Signals Approval Of AT&T/DirecTV Mega-Merger
“AT&T’s desire to merge with DirecTV isn’t simply about finding more TV customers. Given DirecTV’s capability to deliver TV services nationwide, AT&T can sell more TV-Internet-phone packaged bundles after the merger, including possibly offering Internet services to rural customers using its wireless technology. AT&T is the nation’s second largest wireless carrier.”
Recreating The Weird Instruments For (Arguably) The World’s Weirdest Opera
That would be Harry Partch’s Delusion of the Fury. “For many years there was essentially only one set of instruments” – the ones the composer built himself – “capable of playing Mr. Partch’s largest works, which meant the pieces were rarely performed. But a few years ago Ensemble Musikfabrik, the German contemporary music group, decided to revive … Delusion of the Fury, and turned to Thomas Meixner, a percussionist and instrument maker, to build a new set of Partch instruments.”
E.L. Doctorow, 84, ‘One Of Contemporary Fiction’s Most Restless Experimenters’
“Subtly subversive in his fiction – less so in his left-wing political writing – he consistently upended expectations with a cocktail of fiction and fact, remixed in book after book; with clever and substantive manipulations of popular genres like the Western and the detective story; and with his myriad storytelling strategies.”