“Montreal’s Centaur Theatre plans a new musical about Schwartz’s deli, the local landmark known for its smoked meat.”
Tag: 09.23.10
An Artist Turns to (Actual) Magic Tricks
Best known for such conceptual sculptures as an Aeron chair rotated at 200rpm to look like a chalice, Glenn Kaino began exploring the world of illusionists and magic tricks around 2000. By 2008, “he had had enough of art as a commodity,” telling a gallerist at Art Basel Miami Beach, “I’m going back to magic. I want to believe in something again.”
Stanley Levine, 81, Philanthropist Who Transformed Miami’s Arts Landscape
An attorney by trade, Levine helped fund and govern the Concert Association of Florida, led the planning of the Lincoln Road pedestrian mall/arts district, and “raised millions for the [CAF], the Miami City Ballet, the Performing Arts Center Trust – which planned and built the Adrienne Arsht Center – and the New World Symphony.”
California Symphony Fires Its Founding Conductor
“For the first time in 24 years, when the California Symphony opens its season in [Walnut Creek] on Oct. 3, founder and music director Barry Jekowsky will not be at the podium. &$133; [The] board of directors decided Tuesday evening to terminate the conductor.”
Ishmael Houston-Jones Revives the ’80s, East Village-Style
“This fall, Ishmael Houston-Jones will revive a work, right before our eyes. Them, which celebrated its premiere in 1986, features text by Dennis Cooper, music by Chris Cochrane, six male dancers and a dead goat (yay, right?).”
Classical Piano’s Master Improviser, Robert Levin
“If you really want to do something [in a concerto cadenza] that sounds like Haydn but not Mozart, something that sounds like Beethoven but not Schubert, there have to be a lot of switches that are triggered in your brain and they’re based on linguistic things,” comparable to various regional accents.
Paperback-Only Publishing Gets Respectable
Though the paperback-original format has (in the US) usually been the province of popular genre fiction, publishers are finding it “an increasingly attractive option – perhaps the only option – for young authors with no track record, midcareer authors with a challenging track record and international authors being published for the first time in the U.S.”
Frick Collection’s Director to Retire
“As custodian of Henry Clay Frick’s limestone mansion” – and its fabulous art holdings – “it would have been easy for [Anne] Poulet to keep things as they had always been. But instead she has continually improved the surroundings,” refurbishing the building, running an ambitious exhibition program, and expanding the museum’s board and funding.
‘The Serpentine Story of Arab Dance’
“Dance has always held a central place in Arab society, even as the dancers themselves have been relegated to the margins. Wendy Buonaventura looks back at the roots of Arab dance, its impact on Western society and the place of dancers in the Middle East today.”