The 50,000-square-foot project will rise around the existing museum, housed in the humble Hitsville, U.S.A., building where Berry Gordy Jr. launched the careers of stars such as the Supremes, Temptations and Stevie Wonder.
Author: Douglas McLennan
Yuja Wang Named Musical America Artist Of The Year
Andrew Norman was named composer of the year; the bass-baritone Eric Owens, vocalist of the year; and Eighth Blackbird, the new-music sextet currently celebrating its 20th anniversary, ensemble of the year.
Ambitious Miami Museum/Theatre Project Collapses As College Pulls Out
Miami Dade College’s grand plan to build a massive downtown cultural center imploded Monday when college trustees chose to cancel the project rather than proceed amid a declining real estate market and an escalating feud with a local art dealer.
What Will Pop Culture Look Like In The Future? Here are Some Projections…
“The act of going to the movies itself will likely become an expensive, high-culture sort of ritual, like the opera. Hollywood classics will be digitally retooled as VR environments and shown in restored out-of-town multiplexes. And ex-movie stars, desperate for cash, will perform the movies live.”
Actors Union Threatens Video Game Makers With Strike
“The union said that it has tried for more than 19 months to negotiate a new deal with prominent employers in the video game industry and that performers have been governed by a two-decade old contract still in place.”
Are Our Theatre Spaces Failing Our Imaginations?
“We believe in the power of imagination to transport audiences across the universe and everywhere in between, but we could do better to reckon with the technological abilities and limitations of our artistic spaces. How does the architecture of those spaces, of rehearsal rooms and theatres, subtly shape the stories we tell? And how might we acknowledge within our work that making theatre extends beyond rooms?”
Nobels For Literature Are A Ridiculous Idea. But This Year’s Award Makes Them Relevant!
“I have to admit that the judges have done something remarkable. And you have to say, chapeau! For they have thrown the cat among the pigeons in a most delightful manner. First they have given the prize to someone who wasn’t courting it in any way, and that in itself is cheering. Second, in provoking the backlash of the purists who demand that the Nobel go to a novelist or poet, and the diehard fans who feel their literary hero has been short changed, they have revealed the pettiness, and boundary drawing that infests literary discourse. Why can’t these people understand? Art is simply not about a solemn attachment to this or that form. The judge’s decision to celebrate a greatness that also involves writing is a welcome invitation to move away from wearisome rivalries and simply take pleasure in contemplating one man’s awesome achievement.”
Something New: An Arts Super-PAC Aims To Put The Arts In Politics
Usually funded by private investors or large corporations, an artist-run super PAC is a completely new concept, though the driving force behind it is not. “We believe that artists, and art, play an important role in galvanizing our society to do better,” says For Freedoms on its website. “We are frustrated with a system in which money, divisiveness, and a general lack of truth-telling have stifled complex conversation.
An Uber For Classical Music?
“Professional musicians and those studying in conservatories can upload samples to a Groupmuse profile, which an internal team approves. Next, the Groupmuse team pairs performers with hosts who volunteer to host strangers and musicians in their home: a soloist for 10 people, a quartet for a house that can fit 50 listeners. Around 20 Groupmuse shows happen across the country every week, mostly in Boston, New York, Seattle and the Bay Area. Groupmuse suggests each attendee pays $10 for the show; musicians go home with an average of $160.”
We Don’t Seem Bothered By Movie Violence. But Why Do We Think It’s Entertaining?
“The colossal body counts of action blockbusters are incapable of rousing our concern. The vivisections of the torture porn genre we can endure with nary a wince or grimace. We’re unmoved by bloody fisticuffs, unruffled by cities levelled en masse, forever unperturbed by peeled-eyeball gorings. Violence, in the movies at least, has a tough go of actually bothering us. So what about it does?”