“Inside sources say the TSO is playing Let’s Make a Deal with Gary Hanson, a globally respected Toronto-born veteran of the classical music business who retired last year as executive director of the Cleveland Orchestra. In Cleveland, he was lauded for overseeing the magnificent renovation of Severance Hall, increasing attendance and boosting fundraising.”
Author: Douglas McLennan
Can You Build Communities Around E-Books? Here’s Emily Books
“In 2011, Emily Books caught the wave of electronic publication and molded it to fit the needs of their ideal reader. They brought out-of-print titles, or books by passed-over female authors, back to life. At first, Gould said, they had just wanted to solve a problem fomented by commercial publishing’s need to turn a profit.”
Study: Music Lessons Help Students Focus, Tune Out Distractions
Belgian researchers report 9- to 12-year-olds who had been taking regular music lessons displayed “enhanced cognitive inhibitory control” compared to a group of same-age peers. Their study, in the journal Musicae Scientiae, adds to the already large body of evidence showing cognitive benefits of musical training.
How They Train Conductors At The World’s Best Conductor School
“The Sibelius Academy has some features that are unique in the world,” says Jasper Parrott, a leading artist agent in London who regularly visits leading conservatories to watch emerging talent. “It offers opportunities to work with an orchestra, its own very competent student orchestra. And thanks to Finland’s abundance of good orchestras, Sibelius Academy conducting students get professional opportunities even before they graduate.”
How Screen Culture Is Killing Dance (But Maybe Not)
“This new normal wherein everyone carries a small screen with them everywhere starts to have a grim, dystopic cast to it. It’s largely responsible for the loss of casual contact with the unfamiliar and the weird, with that which we did not choose, and—more to the point of my pet project—it doesn’t help bring anyone into contact with dance who wasn’t already interested in it. But then, surprisingly, it does; the screen also emerges as a vehicle that can introduce casual viewers to concert dance.”
This Week in Audience: Boston Ballet’s Dive Into Data
This week: Boston Ballet has done some serious data diving to produce a successful season at the box office… NPR is finding gold in podcasts… When news becomes unmoored from its sources, do we care?… A “young” (didn’t know it was a noun, eh?) declares what will get “youngs” to the arts… Will the machines eventually determine our tastes in art?
What’s The Point Of Orchestra Touring, Asks British Council Exec
“Who now wants a touring orchestra that’s just going to turn up, play, and go? Not many! So, if you are running an orchestra with shrinking public subsidy and are looking to tour, look around you, take account of the best practice from across the world including the UK, and mark your score with an accelerando.”
Film Links Dance To Architecture
“Humans interact with space; shapes define space; humans then interact differently with the space after new objects have entered the picture. In the case of the dancer in the video, her movements are tracked by a machine that then bends an industrial CNC pipe to mimic her. The objects are then placed around the room, thereby affecting her future choreography.”
Lessons Learned Running My Little Free Library
“Not only was I not a librarian, I wasn’t even really dealing in reading material. That the objects in our Little Free Library happened to be books was beside the point. The salient fact was that the items were free. We may as well, I suspected, have been offering plastic spoons, Allen wrenches and facial tissue. I tested this hypothesis by mixing in non-book items including an instructional DVD on how to use an exercise ball, and a few packets of echinacea seeds.”
America’s “Gatekeeper” Problem In Spreading Big Ideas
“There’s a very narrow doorway through which big ideas get to audiences,” said Chris Jackson, the editor-in-chief of Random House’s One World imprint. But as mainstream culture looks increasingly unlike America, there’s reason to hope cultural gatekeepers will soon be forced to expand their horizons.