These invectives against “political” music seem to stand out more due to our current contentious climate, which may create the impression that there has been an uptick in the number of modern pieces with a political orientation. But the truth is that there has always been a desire on the part of artists to respond to the issues of the moment. – NewMusicBox
Author: Douglas McLennan
Dublin’s Quirkiness Is Being Scrubbed. Why?
The past few years have seen several of Dublin’s murals painted over, street markets canceled, and bars and cultural venues closed. Often, the things replacing them are facilities for tourists. With many fearing that the city’s vitality and character is being permanently stripped away, there’s a growing concern that Dublin risks being totally surrendered to pressures created by developers and the tourist industry. – CityLab
The Guardian Picks The Best New Architecture Of The Modern Age
Twenty-five projects make the list – from Tate Modern to housing in South America to New York’s High Line. – The Guardian
How Tate Modern Became An Iconic And Celebrated Building
“Twenty years on, the project is no less powerful. In fact, it seems eerily ahead of its time. The turn of the millennium was a time when “iconic” architecture was in its overblown prime, every city desperate for a piece of the “Bilbao effect”, following Frank Gehry’s thrashing titanium fish for the Guggenheim Museum. To take what seemed like a gloomy 1950s brick shed and strip it out, adding a bare minimum of new elements in raw concrete, glass and steel, was a deeply strange thing to do.” – The Guardian
British Council Urged To Clarify The Role Of Culture In International Promotion
“Artists should not feel like salespeople. There’s a real danger around [perceptions of] Empire 2.0 as a consequence of Brexit. They [the British Council] need to be very careful that UK PLC is not running the show, otherwise what UK culture is considered as becomes very reductive, and the subtlety of soft power gets lost.” – Arts Professional
£1 Billion Investment In London To Create Cultural Events Centre
Investment includes plans to include a 1500-seat theatre, a 1000-seat performing arts venue, a four-screen cinema and a 670,000 square foot creative co-working space, as well as two hotels, shops, cafes and a “jazz-club style restaurant and venue”. When completed in 2023, the site is projected to attract up to £9m in consumer spending and 10 million visitors to the borough each year. – Arts Professional
Architecture That Redefines The Relationships Between In And Out
Whether any of these gestures will mitigate the pressing problems of global warming and rising sea levels is still unknown — the fix likely requires more than what one landscape architect calls “boutique wetlands.” But projects debuting this fall suggest that hard barriers between the designed environment and the natural one are softening — maybe for good. – The New York Times
Scans Of Artists Painting Using Their Feet Show The Brain Rewiring Itself
In typically developed people, the “foot” part of the map is a solid region, with no distinct representation of the toes. But in the brains of Tom Yendell and Peter Longstaff, there were clear toe areas, arranged in order. – The New York Times
Three Trans-Gender Opera Singers Talk About Their Careers
Baritone Lucas, who decided to keep singing with her booming, low-voice type after her physical transition rather than trying to retrain her voice to sing soprano or mezzo roles, is rising to the very top of her profession. In May, she became the first trans singer to perform a lead role in a classic operatic work in the U.S. when she starred in “Don Giovanni” with the Tulsa Opera in Oklahoma. In October, she will play a lead role with the English National Opera in London. – KQED
Historic Find: Milton’s Notes On Shakespeare’s Plays
The astonishing find, which academics say could be one of the most important literary discoveries of modern times, was made by Cambridge University fellow Jason Scott-Warren when he was reading an article about the anonymous annotator by Pennsylvania State University English professor Claire Bourne. – The Guardian