Women Are Funny, But The Grammys Don’t Seem To Know That

This is a year when Hannah Gadsby’s “Nanette” earned rave reviews and made the comedian (as she notes in a joint interview with Roxane Gay this week) unbelievably busy. A year when Michelle Wolf’s epic set at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner made waves – and infuriated the president. “So it’s a shame that the 2019 nominees for best comedy album — a category that now includes spoken comedy and musical comedy — only lauds men.”  – Los Angeles Times

Yes, Anna Netrebko Is Extra, And That’s Why We Love Her

The soprano gives a new meaning to diva. Even when her Carnegie Hall debut gets pushed back, oh, 12 years, that’s fine – she “has an Instagram account much like the interior of a very rich, very well traveled, possibly colorblind teenager’s school locker. … She embodies an excess that lies at the molten core of opera, and which spills into the images she unloads online.” – The New York Times

Dawn Clements, Artist Whose Life Was The Subject Of Her Panoramas, Has Died At 60

An example of her work is “Three Tables in Rome,” which “has a diaristic quality to it, the artist seeming intent on documenting everything around her. For another, it’s an unusual shape: an elongated rectangle with an appendage (the third of the three tables) hanging off the bottom right. And it is huge, more than 20 feet in length.” – The New York Times

This Year’s Classical Grammy Nominations

The Seattle Symphony leads all orchestras with three nominations — two for its present music director, Ludovic Morlot, in Aaron Jay Kernis’ traditionally shaped Violin Concerto with soloist James Ehnes (in the classical instrumental solo and contemporary composition categories), and one for its future music director, Thomas Dausgaard, in Nielsen’s Symphonies Nos. 3 and 4 (orchestral performance), a strong opening entry for a complete Nielsen cycle. There were no nominations for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which has recorded little lately. – Los Angeles Times