Richard Brody: “Kubrick’s movie, which I hadn’t seen since college and always recalled with slight derision for its dated paranoid bombast, came to immediate life … It was the music that effected this change, starting with the excerpt from Ligeti’s Atmosphères. Employed as an overture, it immediately sets a very high bar for the artistic originality required for the movie not to wither and shrink from the screen in full public view.”
Tag: 09.26.13
Minnesota Orchestra Makes New Contract Offer To Locked-Out Musicians
“The Minnesota Orchestra sweetened its offer to locked-out musicians Thursday, after an 11th-hour fundraising effort led by Marilyn Carlson Nelson, one of Minnesota’s wealthiest people. The latest proposal in the bitter yearlong dispute includes a $20,000 one-time bonus to each musician, to help offset a pay cut that would reduce base salaries over three years.”
Madrid’s Teatro Real Makes Up With Gérard Mortier, Two Weeks After Firing Him
While being treated for cancer this month, Mortier found himself replaced as artistic director of Spain’s largest opera house after suggesting publicly that there were no Spaniards fit to succeed him. Now, doubtless to avoid a lawsuit, the Real has named Mortier artistic adviser. Says the house’s president, “There has been absolutely no firing” – just a switch to a position “with less concrete functions.”
Elegy For A Poet Murdered In The Nairobi Siege
Kofi Awoonor, considered Ghana’s greatest modern writer of poetry, in Nairobi for a pan-African literary festival, was one of dozens killed in a Somali terror group’s occupation of the Westgate mall. Teju Cole pays tribute to Awoonor and reports from a memorial held at the festival.
Woody Allen Is Not A Fan Of Feelings
“Ninety-nine per cent of decisions are predicated on feelings – instinctive, emotional, fears, conflicts, unresolved childhood problems. They’re our dominant motivating factor, not reason or rationality or common sense. And that’s why the world is in a terrible, terrible state.”
Why American Book Critics Rarely Do Hatchet Jobs Anymore
Lee Siegel: “[The] dissolution of literary ghettos, where the slaughtering review once reigned, … [has meant] that serious negative criticism – there had always been the brisk negative newspaper review – could, for the first time, have real-life consequences. Now that authors could make a living from their advances, a withering takedown could be a blow to someone’s livelihood.”
NY City Opera Will Likely Enter Bankruptcy Monday
“City Opera’s board voted Thursday to start bankruptcy proceedings next week and wind down the company’s affairs if it fails to raise $7 million by Monday, said Risa B. Heller, a spokeswoman for the company.”
Study: Musicians Process Information Better
“According to this research, people who spend many hours in the practice room not only process information unusually efficiently, but they also do a superior job of not letting occasional errors derail them.”
A Scientific Case Against The Idea We Have Free Will?
“Arguments about free will are mostly semantic arguments about definitions. Most experts who deny free will are arguing against peculiar, unscientific versions of the idea, such as that “free will” means that causality is not involved.”
Should Coding Software Be Taught Alongside Music To Young Students?
“While a popular movement is afoot to teach children, including adolescents, to code–touted by the likes of Bill Gates and basketball star Chris Bosh–few people believe that kindergartners can learn how to bend machines to their will.”