The son of a doctor from Sierra Leone and an English mother, Coleridge-Taylor was a favorite student of the influential composer and professor Charles Villiers Stanford and was championed by Edward Elgar. In addition to a career as conductor, professor and competition judge, he composed a number of successful chamber, orchestral and choral works, including the phenomenally successful (in its time) cantata Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.
Tag: 07.31.12
Why Self-Deception Is A Good And Useful Thing
“Self-deception isn’t just lying or faking, but is deeper and more complicated, says [a UBC researcher] … It involves strong psychological forces that keep us from acknowledging a threatening truth about ourselves.”
Fired Toronto Theatre Director Considers Lawsuit
“Already dealing with a boycott from Toronto theatre artists, the board of directors of Factory Theatre may now face a wrongful dismissal suit from fired artistic director Ken Gass … who founded the theatre in 1970 and returned to its helm 15 years ago as it teetered on the brink of bankruptcy.”
Budget Woes In Duisburg May Mean End Of Deutsche Oper Am Rhein
The highly-regarded company is a joint venture between the old industrial city and its larger, wealthier neighbor, Düsseldorf. But Duisburg’s culture budget has a €7 million shortfall, and the municipal authorities doubt the company’s viability on a budget the city can afford.
$5Million To Study Immortality
“Millions of people fervently believe in an afterlife. John Martin Fischer, a philosopher at the University of California at Riverside, is not one of them. But Mr. Fischer does see the subject as ripe for academic research, and on Tuesday the John Templeton Foundation awarded him a windfall to make that happen – $5-million for a multidisciplinary investigation of human immortality.”
Cough Attack – Classical Music Concert-Goers Turn On A Cougher
“On Sunday night I reviewed half a Proms concert for theartsdesk. The reason I didn’t make the second half wasn’t illness, displeasure at the performance, or end-of-weekend malaise, but rather that a few members of the audience made it impossible for me to return.”
How Flying Lasers Are Revolutionizing Archaeology
“In addition to providing significantly more precise 3-D images, it also allows for overgrowth to be taken out of the equation. What’s more, one can capture images of massive expanses in one fell swoop.”
Ballet San Antonio Begins Hiring Back Its Dancers
“Ballet San Antonio, which took some cost-cutting measures earlier this year to manage its debt, is rebounding, adding two artists to its staff and rehiring many of the dancers who were let go a few months ago.”
New Yorker To Publish Fitzgerald Story It Rejected In 1936
“The New Yorker this week is publishing a story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, ‘Thanks for the Light,’ that it rejected three-quarters of a century ago. Turning the story down in 1936, the editors said that it was ‘altogether out of the question’ and added, ‘It seems to us so curious and so unlike the kind of thing we associate with him and really too fantastic.'”
Olympics Opening Ceremony: Danny Boyle’s Triumph Of Agitprop
“During the era of agitprop theatre in the 1960s and 70s, when politically committed companies toured the UK, … no one would have imagined that a passionately leftwing theatre show would one day play to an audience of one billion and have a budget of £27m to spend. But, last Friday night and Saturday morning, that is exactly what happened.”