Lara Pellegrinelli writes that, “as a lover of words, I’d once held the opinion that ‘Notes on the Program’ are bound to be mind-numbingly, soul-crushingly boring – or one of the more effective embalming tools for classical music.” After seeing a few – too few – examples of genuinely fascinating notes, she thinks “that this genre of writing about music needs an intervention.” So she provides one, complete with six useful rules. – 21CM
Tag: 09.05.19
How Conservators Keep Art Made With Day-Glo Pigments Glowing
A reporter visits Los Angeles County Museum of Art, conservator Kamila Korbela as she works on restoring Frank Stella’s enormous Bampur. The challenge: the hue that’s fading fastest is one of Day-Glo Color Corp.’s most chemically complex: Saturn Yellow. – Los Angeles Times
Mezzo Dolora Zajick Will Retire From Opera Next Year
“[Her] final performance will take place at the Metropolitan Opera in the spring of 2020, when she will make her role debut as Kabanicha in performances of Janáček’s Káťa Kabanová scheduled for May 2, 6 and 9.” – Opera News
PBS NewsHour Visits Cambodia’s All-Gay-Male Classical Dance Troupe
“In 2015, artist Prumsodun Ok formed Cambodia’s first all-male and gay-identified Khmer dance company — in his living room. Part of his mission was to support the revival of an art form all but destroyed by the reign of the Khmer Rouge. Ok told his dancers they would need to be brave in order to give voice to a marginalized community. He shares his brief but spectacular take on honoring tradition.” (video plus transcript) – PBS NewsHour
DC Mayor Locks City’s Arts Commission Out Of Its Storage Vault
In an escalation of what has reportedly been a long feud, staffers of the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities “arrived at their offices in Southeast before the holiday weekend to find that the badges that grant them access to the agency’s art collection no longer worked.” The locks had been changed on the order of the office of Mayor Muriel Bowser, and access was not restored until the middle of the following week. – Washington City Paper
How Conspiracy Theorists Are Building (And Rebuilding) Their Own Networks
Over the past few years, an ideologically diverse coalition of white nationalists, conservatives and ultra-libertarians has launched attempts to build out its own online infrastructure, setting in motion a migration towards newly established “censorship-free” platforms. – Journal of Design and Science
Ceiling Collapses At The Portland Art Museum
Nobody was injured and the Art Museum says no artworks were damaged. 6 chairs and a table were lost. It says engineers examined the third floor room and the rest of the Mark Building and found no structural safety issues. – KXL
Hey Amazon, Goodreads Is A Terrible, Neglected Trashfire
Goodreads is essentially a good listmaking app, a place where readers go to, well, make lists. Is it a community of readers? Um. “Goodreads lingers in the dustbin of the early aughts, doomed to the hideous beige design and uninspiring organization of a strip mall doctor’s office.” Amazon, what gives? – OneZero
How 18th-Century Gentlemen Got Dressed [VIDEO]
Hint: They didn’t do it for themselves. – Aeon
How To Attract Young Audiences To Theatre, And Keep Them
A case study comes via Portland Center Stage in Oregon, where the theatre had a funded chance to experiment to see what works … and what doesn’t. Turns out, exterior bus advertising and billboards really work: “All those surveyed mentioned that if they can’t avoid advertising, they tend to pay attention.” – American Theatre