Author: Douglas McLennan

The Elusive Martha Argerich Sits Down To Talk With Anne Midgette

“Argerich’s is a story about someone with superhuman gifts trying to find a way to live a normal life. Many musicians live a life of monkish order, focusing on the discipline of music. Argerich, by contrast, has seemed to go out of her way to be disorganized. She’s so given to canceling performances, sometimes at the last minute, that she long ago stopped signing contracts: Presenters who want her have to take the risk. And her personal life has been turbulent. The three daughters by three men are one illustration of a life filled with relationships; over and over, she has established veritable communes of young musicians and non-musicians who have wandered into her large, chaotic houses.”

Art As Something To Say Or Art As Entertainments?

“People naturally default to thinking of the arts as one of the things we choose to do with our free time and our money, depending on our taste. Looked at this way, an arts experience is no different from eating out or going to a ball game. The current debate about whether artists should speak to policy or politics from the stage is framed to reinforce the default thinking about the arts as entertainment.”

And Another Daily Newspaper Cuts Its Last Full-time Arts Writer

This time the Austin Statesman. “In an email exchange this week, Statesman Editor Debbie Hiott confirmed that, beginning in 2017, the local daily will no longer ‘have a dedicated reporter covering only the visual and performing arts.’ She attributed the move to a familiar culprit: the long, steady drop-off of advertising income that’s had mainstream newspapers across the country cutting back staff and coverage until they’re practically on life support.”

Why Language Wants To Be Free (And Evolve And Change)

“As people in a literate society, we think of language as what’s on the page. That’s the real thing; speaking is just an approximation. Language sits still. But then we hear new things coming in and unless it strikes us as catchy, we think, It’s not supposed to do that because that’s not what in the book. So when new things happen, they’re processed as vulgar and as broken. We don’t understand that no language could ever sit still.”

French Musician Jailed In Russia Over Plagiarism Dispute With Russian Pop Star

“Didier Marouani, a disco star who first toured the Soviet Union in 1983, and his lawyer, Igor Trunov, were detained Tuesday evening in a bank where they said they planned to sign an out-of-court settlement with Filipp Kirkorov, Russia’s biggest pop star. Marouani, 63, claims one of Kirkorov’s songs, “Cruel Love,” contains music he wrote years before.”

Four Things That Would Change The Complexion Of Classical Music

“I am tired of picking up a classical music magazine plastered with middle-aged white faces. In the same way that a six-year-old boy in Tower Hamlets can run around the living room in his Cristiano Ronaldo-emblazoned jersey, screaming at the top of his lungs while he watches his hero play on the box, we need to ensure that the next generation of violinists, composers, marketers, vocalists, lighting technicians, managers, bassoonists and producers alike can have the same experience when they pick up their parents’ copy of Gramophone or Classical Music Magazine.”

Problem: It’s Becoming Increasingly Difficult To Define What/Where Home Is

“When the technology of the home was more like a tool to augment human muscle power – a place for the washing machine, the fridge, the boiler – the home was as a private, bounded space. Now technology is breaking down those boundaries. When parents worry about where their children are going (metaphorically) and to whom they’re talking on social media, they’re acknowledging that people can be at home, in their bedrooms, and yet somewhere else simultaneously. Young people seem to be most at home when they are on – or perhaps ‘in’ – their phones, flicking between apps, surfing their social networks.”