At age 43, Barbara Hannigan “is developing a second career, as a conductor, and she seems to be stealing shows around Europe with some regularity.” Simon Rattle is such a fan that he sent her to legendary teacher Jorma Panula, who came out of retirement to coach her.
Tag: 08.20.14
North Carolina Ends Tax Breaks For Movie Production
“North Carolina has been offering producers a 25% refundable tax credit, which meant, state legislators note, that taxpayers offset about 25 cents of each dollar spent. Refundable credits reimburse a company for its investments, even if it doesn’t owe state taxes.”
Why Isn’t The Edinburgh Int’l Festival Pulling In Any Of The Huge Fringe Audience? Asks Incoming Head
Fergus Linehan “pointed out that the EIF has the biggest theatre audience in the world on its doorstep, but struggles to exploit it. … ‘Why do we struggle to deliver an audience that looks like even a cross section of the people in this room, or even more, a cross section of people walking down the street?'”
Why People Fall For Fake News Stories (It’s Not Just Irony Impairment)
“‘This isn’t about shortened attention spans. This is about an overabundance of decontextualized snippets of info.’ Facebook headlines and Tweets simply don’t consistently provide the cues one would need to distinguish weird news from fake news, ‘unless the [source] is consistently ironic’.”
Head Of Korea’s Gwangju Biennale Resigns After Censoring Mural
“Earlier this month, a painting by the artist Hong Seong-dam was removed from an exhibition … following pressure by the Gwangju city government … The picture depicts the South Korean president Park Geun-hye being assailed by the families of children who died in the country’s MV Sewol ferry disaster last April.”
Another Russian Censorship Row, This Time Over Cultural Policy Paper
“A controversial document on Russian cultural policy, commissioned by President Vladimir Putin and backed by the culture minister Vladimir Medinsky, has drawn criticism – even within the Kremlin.” Its objective is to set cultural “norms” for all media; a leaked early draft included such phrases as “cultural projects that impose values that are alien to society” and “Russia is not Europe”.
Margaret Atwood Would Totally Fit In At Comic-Con
“I designed some costume events for these doctors … The male doctor was a kidney surgeon, and he wanted the magic power to immediately implant kidneys in people, so his alter ego was named Kidney Boy, and the female doctor was Dr. Snit, and she had pain issues. And I gave them some little flying kidney helpers, because you have to have helpers. And Dr. Snit got a magic wand with a little halo of Tylenols.”
Met Opera: The Labor Crisis Is Over, The Spiritual Crisis Goes On
Justin Davidson: “Can an opera company indefinitely support thousands of practitioners of arcane crafts? Must a costly large-scale art form inevitably be a luxury product, or can technology help it reach a wider public than ever? Do the new rich even have any interest? More immediately, can the company put on good-enough shows to fill its yawning house?”