Friday’s concert will strictly adhere to current social distancing guidelines in Germany, with players forming a chamber orchestra, spaced apart from one another on stage. The programme includes Arvo Pärt’s Fratres, music by Ligeti, Barber’s Adagio for Strings anda chamber version of Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with soprano Christiane Karg. – ClassicFM
Author: Douglas McLennan
Texas Governor Says Movie Theatres Can Reopen This Week. Movie Theatres Say… Er, No…
“Opening safely is a very complex project that involves countless new procedures and equipment, all of which require extensive training. This is something we cannot and will not do casually or quickly.” – Los Angeles Times
Quixotic: Renegade Design Competition Reimagines A New LACMA
Of the 28 proposals submitted, the jury — which included a retired LACMA curator — selected six as the “leading ideas.” The winning studios will each receive $1,500 prizes. Nan Goldin declined to say who is funding the competition: “It’s the same anonymous donor who has bankrolled the ads that we’ve taken out.” – Los Angeles Times
Learning How To Do The Arts In A Post-COVID World
One challenge is figuring out how to monetize the digital experience for an audience that’s bathing in a glut of free content. Another is figuring out how to create an experience that’s satisfying online, by organizations that have been trying to do this for some years already. – Vanity Fair
We’ll Have To Learn New Ways To Use Public Space
As a post-lockdown city edges into view, we’ll have to develop new ways to use the places we share, from public restrooms to restaurants, classrooms, hallways, subway cars, and sidewalks. Prodded by fear and guided by tape, we will develop new social dances that resemble the formal ballroom steps of yore. – New York Magazine
If Ever The BBC Proved Its Worth, It’s Now
Nick Hornby: “Before all this started, the BBC was under assault, apparently because of its independence. It was, is, being threatened with all sorts, including the loss of its lifeblood licence fee. The BBC, one of our crowning achievements as a nation! I will not waste space here listing what it has given us, the comedy and the drama and the sport, some of the things that have helped to define who we are now . You know that already, even if you’re the dimmest Tory MP in Parliament. But right now, the BBC is helping me to live through and understand a crisis.” – Penguin
Theatre For Nobody? (The Show Must Go On!)
The performance is scheduled to begin promptly at 8 p.m. “No one will be admitted. No one will be onstage,” reads a news release for the production. “Don’t call for reservations. No live streaming.” – Washington Post
An Existential Self-Help Book For Artists
What does it mean to be an artist in an economy that actually doesn’t allow many people to make their living as artists? The art world is in the midst of a larger inflection point at the moment, as it increasingly recognizes itself as yet another industry built on hoarded capital and exploited labor. – The New Republic
Does The Pandemic Signal The End Of American Exceptionalism?
“It’s a reckoning that has stirred intense debate about health policy, inequality and partisan politics, but also extends beyond it, touching on history, values and national identity. And for some, the severity of the crisis — and the slow, disjointed government reaction to a danger warned about for months — has also upended their conception of the country, shattering the already battered idea of American exceptionalism, if not turning it on its head.” – The New York Times
How Shakespeare Became A Modern Superstar
The modern idea of “Shakespeare,” both as artist and ideal genius, was essentially an eighteenth-century creation, though it is often credited to the Romantics. – Hudson Review