The most recent annual survey data from NPOs found they continued to make more of their own income through ticket sales and other activity in 2017/18, with earned income representing 55% of total revenue and generating £889.6 million. This represented a 4.8% increase on the previous year. – The Stage
Author: Douglas McLennan
A NY City Ballet Star Returns – Unannounced And Under A Cloud
Brian Siebert: “In short, this rushed, business-as-usual reintroduction of Amar Ramasar won’t do, though I understand the company’s desire to downplay it.” – The New York Times
Turning On Ourselves: Indictment Of Humanities In Higher Ed Can Be Ugly, Unfair
“It’s one thing to own the ugly feelings with which one is understandably and unjustly riddled after years of hanging on by the fingernails while applying for job after job, only to be ghosted by the search committees who pronounce judgment. But it’s quite another to wield those feelings as a weapon against people who are also marginalized.” – Chronicle of Higher Education
Have Music Copyright Suits Gotten Out Of Hand?
There’s been a surge in copyright claims ever since Marvin Gaye’s family sued Robin Thicke over the single Blurred Lines in 2015. “The odds of getting sued in this day and age are so high, we’re going to get to a point where nobody can write anything – because everything will be derivative of something else. – BBC
The Pop-Up Instagrammable Experience: Is It Art?
“This is a sign of the times. Artists are understanding what audiences or the sponsors are drawn to and are looking for. They are looking for it to go viral or become an icon of that moment.” – Toronto Star
The Internet Can Connect Us To Unspeakable Horrors. Can That Be Good For Us?
“The idea that being a decent person involves controlling the kinds of thoughts you allow yourself to think can easily be met with resistance. If virtue depends on limits to what is thinkable, and a certain free-thought ideal celebrates no limits, then the potential conflict between freethinking and virtue is obvious.” – Aeon
Transcending The Biological: Consider The Pointe Shoe
“Pointe shoes are a strangely enduring anachronism that epitomises the enduring desire for ballerinas to embody the unnatural, to portray an illusion. And their intention as a tool to evoke ethereal beings is in direct contrast with their actual biological impact on very real humans.” – Aeon
New Financing, New Partners: Woodstock 50 Is On Again?
Perhaps. The music festival, planned to commemorate the iconic original fifty years ago, has been plagued by financing and organizational issues. But after a favorable court ruling and new partners, organizers say it’s on again. – New York Magazine
The Problem With Eternity (And What To Do About It)
“The problem with eternity is not that it doesn’t exist but that it is undesirable and incoherent; it kills meaning and collapses value. This is a difficult truth to learn, because we are naturally fearful of loss, and therefore attached to the idea of eternal restoration.: – The New Yorker
Does A New Classical Music Streaming Service Solve The Meta-Data Problem?
Music streaming services such as Spotify and Apple have notoriously bad interfaces for classical music. The problem is meta-data, the absence of which makes it difficult to properly search. Now Idagio, “launched in the United States and Canada last fall, is a new streaming service focusing solely on classical recordings—but focusing on doing it right.” – Vogue