Born in Martinique to an accomplished family (an aunt was the first black female student at the Sorbonne), she first made her mark in coloratura roles such as Leïla in The Pearl Fishers and the title role in Lakmé. She went on to have a stellar career in Paris and abroad, noted especially for Mozart, Rameau (she sang in the first modern revivals of several of his operas), and contemporary works (she created the role of the Angel in Messiaen’s Saint François d’Assise). – Barron’s (AFP)
Tag: 09.07.20
TikTok Holocaust Meme Demonstrates Need For Ethical Remembrance
The TikTok Holocaust trend saw users – for the most part, teenagers – uploading videos of themselves pretending to be Holocaust victims entering heaven. Many were outraged, describing the videos as “trauma porn” or even antisemitic. In contrast, creators stressed their intentions to educate or spread awareness. – The Conversation
Violinist Suing Former Shanghai Quartet Colleagues Over Dismissal
In March of this year, Yi-Wen Jiang posted a comment on the Chinese social media platform WeChat in response to a post by San Francisco Symphony associate principal viola Yun Jie Liu. Jiang’s comment, which went viral, was denounced by some Chinese media outlets as ’racist’ and led to a parting of the ways between Jiang and his fellow Shanghai Quartet members. – The Strad
Revealed: Gehry Plans For Two New Concert Halls Across From Disney Hall
With fundraising for the Colburn School project stalled, Frank Gehry released to The Times images of his concert hall models for the first time. As the architect’s design demonstrates, the two halls could well make or break the promise of the $1-billion Grand. – Los Angeles Times
Pioneering Tuba Virtuoso Constance Weldon Dead At 88
Believed to be the first woman to play tuba in a fully professional orchestra in the U.S., she was hired by the Boston Pops in 1955, after her second time at Tanglewood, and went on to hold positions in the North Carolina Symphony, the Netherlands Ballet Orchestra, and the Kansas City Philharmonic. (For a time, she was acting principal tuba for the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam.) A Florida native, she spent most of her career, more than 30 years, at the University of Miami and the Miami Philharmonic. – The New York Times
So What Are Straw Man Arguments Really For?
One wonders how straw man arguments function. Our answer is that straw men arguments do their rhetorical work not on the speaker depicted as made of straw, but rather on an audience of argumentative onlookers, often selected specifically for the argument by the straw-manner. – 3 Quarks Daily
Longest Concert In History Just Had Its First Chord Change In Seven Years
Back in 2001, a group of people decided to take the tempo direction in John Cage’s 1985 work As Slow As Possible to an extreme and began a performance (of the composer’s 1987 arrangement for organ, Organ²/ASLSP) intended to last 639 years. (Since the score opens with a rest, the first notes didn’t actually begin sounding until early 2003.) On Sept. 5, which would have been Cage’s 108th birthday, performers executed the first chord change since 2013; it was the 14th since the concert began. Catherine Hickey reports on how it was done (and yes, there was a crowd). – The New York Times