Among the nominees for Britain’s worst new building of the year are a couple that look sort of like actual carbuncles, if carbuncles had right angles.
Author: Matthew Westphal
BBC To Experiment With ‘Slow Radio’
Remember “slow TV“? The Norwegians pioneered it, with programs like a real-time seven-hour train run from Bergen to Oslo. Well, BBC Radio 3 (the classical music station) is going to try the audio equivalent.
India’s Big New Performing Arts Impresario Is A Power Company
Energo India’s main business is building electric plants, but last year it opened a new division called Navrasa Duende, which has already produced concert tours and film festivals. Next month, it’s bringing in from Ukraine the first professional staging of the ballet Swan Lake in India in living memory.
Top Posts From AJBlogs 08.31.17
Homeward Bound
Jonah Bokaer performs at the Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2017-08-31
Janne “Loffe” Carlsson 1937-2017
Less than a month after he amused a huge audience at the opening event of the Ystad Sweden Jazz Festival, the Swedish actor, comedian and drummer Janne “Loffe” Carlsson has died. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2017-08-31
Artist To Swarm Philly’s Ben Franklin Parkway With Lantern-Covered Pedicabs
In a new project titled Fireflies, Cai Guo-Qiang, the artist known for (literal) fireworks such as Fallen Blossoms on the front steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, will send a fleet of pedicabs swathed in colorful lamps to perform synchronized maneuvers on the city’s grand avenue and then pick up passengers for an evening ride.
Drama Critic Gets Bad Review, Takes It Personally, Discovers That It Hurts
In which Time Out London‘s theatre editor books a room in Edinburgh via Airbnb, has a minor disagreement with his host, and finds himself on the receiving end of a 500-word “screed”. “As I proceeded to moan about it on Twitter, I heard the faint sound of a very distant penny dropping …”
Bringing Western Opera (Back) To India
Patricia Rozario, a Mumbai-born soprano who made her name singing the music of the late John Tavener and now teaches at London’s Royal College of Music, has been making regular visits to her home country to give young singers advanced training in opera technique – and then creating opportunities for them to perform. Last month, Rozario and her colleagues produced the first opera seen at Mumbai’s old Royal Opera House in some eight decades.
Why ‘Gone With The Wind’ May Be The One Confederate Memorial Worth Saving
Alyssa Rosenberg: “Both types of period pieces are valuable historical artifacts, not of the events and people they portray, but of previous generations of Americans’ efforts to figure out how they feel about the Civil War. … [What’s more, the film] casts a more gimlet eye on the Confederacy than it often gets credit for.”
‘The Man Who Was Eaten Alive,’ Wildlife Filmmaker Alan Root, Dead At 80
“[He] splashed through crocodile-infested rivers, piloted hot-air balloons over stampeding wildebeests and lost a ‘Coke bottle’-size chunk of his calf to an angry hippopotamus, all while producing nearly two dozen acclaimed nature documentaries.”
Why We Keep Coming Back To ‘Waiting For Godot’
“Samuel French, Inc., which licenses it, reports that Godot will be professionally produced at least ten times around the world in the next three months, nearly 65 years after it first premiered.” Shannon Reed considers the reasons why – including this one: “we return to Godot at least partly to be able to walk out of Godot.”