“Long neglected in a city of opera and music, the newly-renamed Vienna State Ballet recycled old favourites like Swan Lake and The Nutcracker for years, without seeking to renew its repertoire. … In his first season, the Frenchman has planned no less than eight premieres.”
Tag: 11.11.10
Gentrifying Istanbul District Fights Back – Literally – Against the Arts
“When what had been a gentrifying neighborhood’s most successful art walk devolved into a bloody street fight, it raised embarrassing questions for a city celebrating its status as a 2010 European Capital of Culture.”
American Symphony Orch. Switches From Freelance to Salaried Status
“The American Symphony Orchestra is on the verge of completing a contract that would offer its musicians salaried positions for the first time in its 48-year history … The proposal would convert the ASO, a regular presence at venues including Carnegie Hall, into a standing orchestra, meaning its 82 tenured musicians would receive salaries equivalent to their current per-service earnings.”
P. Lal. 81, Patriarch of English Book Publishing in India
“Professor Lal’s business was publishing Indian writers in English. Of the great old works he made masterly translations; new writers he encouraged.” (He published the early works of, among others, Vikram Seth, Dilip Hiro and Anita Desai.) “No secretary, assistant or copy editor helped him; he did all the nitty gritty of correcting and editing himself.” His other great project was translating the entire 100,000-verse Mahabharata into readable English.
Aerial Spectacular: The Autumn Ballets of the Starlings
“Over the coming weeks, millions of starlings will take to the air performing a series of breathtaking aerial ballets each evening before dusk. Such murmurations, as they are called, are a testament to the amazing, complex behaviours that animals are capable of. Yet scientists are only just beginning to understand how they do it.”
Want to Be Happy? Focus, Dammit!
“Using data collected from a specially designed iPhone app, the researchers – stay with me now – report we spend nearly 47 percent of our waking hours thinking about something other than what’s happening in front of us. Moreover, they write in the journal Science, this lack of focus tends to make us less happy.”
NYTimes To Start Publishing E-Book Bestseller Lists
“The lists will be compiled from weekly data from publishers, chain bookstores, independent booksellers and online retailers, among other sources.”
The Literary Prize Sensation And The Publisher That Won’t
Las week Johanna Skibsrud won one of Canada’s biggest literary prizes, the Giller. But the book was published by a tiny regional press, and only 1000 copies are produced each week. It’s a problem when there’s instant demand for tens of thousands…
Is Contemporary Vocal Music The Thing That Will Save Classical Music?
“Perhaps surprisingly, new music for voice is not only a favorite among certain performers but a hit with audiences as well. The portability of the human voice–not to mention the unique connection listeners feel to singers–means that new vocal music can find itself in of all sorts of venues and reach all sorts of audiences.”
Robot Jams With Musicians
“A robot called Shimon, created by a team at Georgia Institute of Technology,has been designed to play the marimba and interact with humans as it performs. It was recently showcased at the USA Science and Engineering festival in Washington DC.”