Imagine taking a call that goes something like this: Hello, sir. Did you know that here on the other side of the country, a theater is staging an entire musical based loosely on one particularly exciting day in your life that happened nearly 20 years ago?
Month: October 2015
Pressure’s On: Boston’s MFA Expecting Very Big Things From Its New Director
The MFA expects Matthew Teitelbaum to lead the charge in ambitious programming, acquisition, preservation, scholarship, and fundraising. And, after meeting him at a community breakfast in September and listening to his list of priorities — compiled after he had spent less than 100 days on the job — it is clear that the governing MFA board also expects him to shake the place up a bit, too.
Chicago Art Institute Director To Step Down
Douglas Druick, who first joined the Art Institute as a curator in 1984, was serving as acting president when he was appointed to succeed James Cuno as director of the institution in 2011.
Artnet
Meet This Year’s Nobel Literature Prize Winner
Svetlana Alexievich’s works often blend literature and journalism. She is best known for giving voice to women and men who lived through World War II, the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan that lasted from 1979 to 1989, and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986.
‘It’s Long Past Time’ For James Levine To Retire From Met Opera, Says New York Times Classical Editor
Zachary Woolfe: “It’s time – long past time – for Mr. Levine to make a transition to an emeritus role. Maybe then, with a fresh perspective to set alongside that of Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, the company can reverse the ‘artistic retrenchment’ that Alex Ross rightly observes this season.”
Streaming And Classical Music – Even More Dangers Than For Pop?
“However, whilst metadata and audio quality have been the burning issues for classical journalists and listeners, it’s the economics of streaming that has been alarming certain independent specialist classical record companies. In fact, as far as they are concerned, streaming poses unique and far greater problems for the classical industry than it does for the pop world.”
Promising Woman Conductor Dead At 27 After Cerebral Hemorrhage During Rehearsal
Zaeth Ritter Arenas, music director of the Orquesta Sinfónica Sinaloa de las Artes in Culiacán, was rushed to a hospital for emergency surgery on Sept. 27 but died a week later. (in Spanish; Google-translated version here)
What’s ‘Super Thursday’? Sort Of Like ‘Black Friday’ For The Book Industry?
“Super Thursday is the day when publishers release many of the big titles expected to greet eager readers, and elderly relatives, on 25 December. In 2015 there are 404 of them: that, remarkably, represents something of a record, last year we counted 315. In other words: it is a big moment for a book business still highly reliant on gift purchases, and a time of extreme activity for booksellers. And excitement, too, of course. This is fun.”
There’s A Man Scattering Fake Books, Signs And Pamphlets Around L.A.
“When he’s on a job, leaving fake signs and objects in his gym, at IKEA, in book stores, in chain stores, on the street or at a museum, he tries to be sneaky. Once the deed is done, ‘I run away as fast as possible,’ he says. Since January, Wysaski, a Los Angeles comedy writer who runs the website Pleated Jeans, has been planting jokes in the real world. “
The Beautiful People Are The Hardest To Draw: Interview With A Courtroom Artist
“Chicago courtroom sketch artist Lou ‘L.D.’ Chukman has drawn some of the biggest names to ever pass through Chicago’s unfathomably large court system. He’s been working as an artist since 1975, in courtrooms and doing caricatures and commissions.”