Tag: 10.29.18

Rubin Institute Music Criticism Prizes Awarded

Winners of the 2018 Stephen and Cynthia Rubin Institute for Music Criticism have been announced. Jennifer Gersten, a DMA candidate at Stony Brook University, was chosen by a panel of leading national music critics to receive the $10,000 Rubin Prize in Music Criticism for demonstrating outstanding promise in music criticism. Brin Solomon, an MFA candidate at New York University, was selected as runner-up and received a $1,000 award.

Meet The Syrian Expat Philharmonic Orchestra

“[The SEPO’s] roughly 75 musicians perform on traditional orchestral instruments – strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion – occasionally supplemented by instruments from Middle Eastern traditions. In the three years of the orchestra’s existence, it has performed extensively throughout Europe.” DW’s Rick Fulker speaks with the orchestra’s founder and artistic director, Raed Jazbeh.

Richard Gill, Australia’s Favorite Classical Music Educator And Conductor, Dead At 76

“Whether in concert halls or tertiary institutions, or as a guest on the popular television program Spicks and Specks, Gill was committed to the belief that music mattered to all Australians.” In addition to his tireless public education work, he co-founded and directed a major conservatory in Perth, an opera company in Melbourne, and Australia’s first period-instrument orchestra to specialize in Romantic and late-Classical works.

So “Reality TV”? Reality Movies Are A Whole Different Animal

These films serve as a testament to the growing trend of “street casting”—using “normal” people, discovered in their natural habitats, rather than those found through casting agencies or the professional acting community. Some of the best independent films of the past few years—Sean Baker’s “The Florida Project,” Andrea Arnold’s “American Honey,” and Abdellatif Kechiche’s “Blue Is the Warmest Color”—were created this way, and they make the notion of professional acting seem altogether antiquated, particularly when the characters are part of a milieu that requires a heightened degree of specificity. Stories about subculture succeed when handled delicately, and with the willing guidance of those within it.

Virtual Reality Promises To Give You Experiences Outside Your Experience. But Can It Cultivate Empathy?

VR researchers tell us that simulations can let us see what it’s like to experience the day-to-day indignities of racist microaggression, of becoming homeless, or even of being an animal primed for butchering. The hope is that this technologically-enabled empathy will help us to become better, kinder, more understanding people. But we should be skeptical of these claims. While VR might help us to cultivate sympathy, it fails to generate true empathy.