Their names were Sister Föben, Sister Katura, and Sister Hanna, and they were members of the Ephrata Cloister, a radical commune of Pennsylvania Dutch Evangelicals in the mid-1700s. Baritone and musicologist Chris Herbert (of New York Polyphony) has digitized and transcribed the manuscript in which these composers’ hymns (“just devotional, simple music,” he says) were found, rounded up four singers, and recorded the works in the Ephrata Cloister Meetinghouse. – NPR
Tag: 07.24.20
Indianapolis Symphony Cancels 2020-21 Season
A statement released jointly by the musicians and management said, “We recognize the challenges presented to the ISO by the pandemic and unforeseen economic. For those reasons, the 2020-21 indoor season will not go as planned.” Next summer’s outdoor concert series, Symphony on the Prairie, remains on the schedule. – Indianapolis Star
Richmond Symphony To Return To The Concert Hall
The new season will include in-person Masterworks concerts at the Carpenter Theatre at the Dominion Energy Center in September, October and November. The capacity of the Carpenter Theatre will be reduced from 1,800 to fewer than 400 to allow 6 feet of distance between seats. – Richmond Times-Dispatch
What Do You Do To Thank Brooklyn Hospital Workers During The Pandemic?
If you’re Los Angeles artist Michael Gittes, you paint 1800 small pieces of work, one for each worker, and deliver them to Brooklyn. The artist: “I decided to paint flowers because even though these people are all part of a big beautiful garden, I wanted them to know they were all individual flowers, and without them, there would be no garden. I wanted it to have a ‘secret admirer’ kind of vibe.” – Washington Post
Lotty Rosenfeld, Artist Who Protested The Chilean Dictatorship With Her Art, Has Died At 77
Rosenfeld, “through the simple act of creating a line on a street in Chile, mounted an important artistic and political intervention against an oppressive government.” – ARTNews
Blockbuster Movies Are Delayed Again, Indefinitely
With fresh spikes in the virus in the U.S., studios delay releases again, and “hopes for a speedy substantial resurgence at the global box office were dashed.” – The Guardian (UK)
Writer Walter Mosley Has Some Thoughts On How The Pandemic Will Change Humanity
The mystery and TV writer says maybe we’ll be better at responding to dangerous events in the future – or at least some of us will be. – LitHub
For A Musician At The Intersection Of Art, Community, And Activism, Awards Seem Superfluous
Martha Gonzalez sings with the band Quetzal and has a new memoir out as well. When the band was nominated for (and won) a Grammy, “Quetzal never showed up to the pre-Grammy gala. Instead, they did the most Quetzal thing ever: They opened the doors to the Breed Street Shul in Boyle Heights, invited every band from East L.A. that had ever been nominated for a Grammy and threw a concert. Who needs a Grammy when you have community?” – Los Angeles Times
Why Did Much Of Human Communication Move From Gestures To Oral Language?
Hands convey meaning, and they have for eons, but they’re not our primary means of communicating to each other. “People gesture, but their gesture is clearly a secondary supplement. People also sign but, outside of deaf communities, they favour speech. So, if language did get its start in the hands, then at some later stage it decamped to the mouth. The vexing question is: why?” – Aeon
Jane Austen’s Politics Of Walking
Since quarantine, a lot of us have been doing a lot more walking in our neighborhoods or wherever we can find to go outside without a bunch of people nearby. Austen would understand. “A special awareness flows through a body as it propels itself through the world—the motion, whatever form it takes, is habitual and characteristic for us as we move, but in a way that seems at the same time to make us more able to notice a bug on the sidewalk, the hat of someone approaching. Walking, we draw ourselves and our world together.” – LitHub