“Many US museums have been closely monitoring the on-going destruction of heritage sites in Syria and Iraq. But few have had boots on the ground like the Penn Museum. The Philadelphia institution’s curators and researchers have been on the frontlines of the battle to safeguard cultural heritage in conflict zones. Now, they have organised an exhibition that seeks to illustrate just how high the stakes are.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Tenor Lawrence Brownlee Joins Opera Philadelphia Staff
The 44-year-old tenor, famous for his skill at high-flying, difficult Rossini roles, has been named Artistic Advisor. “One of his first projects is to help develop a new opera with jazz musicians Esperanza Spalding and Wayne Shorter that’s expected to premiere in 2019. One of his big goals is to show young people in Philadelphia that opera is cool.” Peter Dobrin does a Q&A with Brownlee about his plans – which, not to worry, include continuing to sing.
Hermitage Bumps Up Security After St. Petersburg Bombing
“‘All visitors are being inspected, which surely might cause inconvenience for the museum’s guests,’ the museum said in a statement … The Hermitage also said it had reached an agreement with Rosgvardia, the new National Guard created by President Vladimir Putin in 2016, to strengthen security at the museum.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 04.04.17
More productive, less destructive
One of my favorite moments in any planning or strategy meeting is when someone looks suddenly resolute, and says something like: “You know what the problem is? The problem is that we don’t have a system … read more
AJBlog: The Artful Manager Published 2017-04-04
Acknowledging the Past, Moving On
The Stephen Petronio Company revives works by those who have influenced him and offers a world premiere. … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2017-04-04
Guest Report: The NEA Jazz Masters Concert
At the invitation of the RiffTides staff, reader Michael Phillips sent a report about the NEA Jazz Masters Tribute Concert last night at the Kennedy Center. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2017-04-04
Unfair at Vanity Fair: William Cohan Muddies the Met Mess
With the intense interest generated by Robin Pogrebin‘s shocking front-page revelations in yesterday’s NY Times about the Metropolitan Museum’s governance lapses, it’s likely that pundits will pile on with commentaries fueled more by indignation and sensationalism than by the deep knowledge … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2017-04-04
From a Secret Location
Once upon a time, hundreds of editors, mainly poets, and all manner of bohemian riffraff took to their mimeo machines. They produced an avalanche of little magazines, … read more
AJBlog: Straight|Up Published 2017-04-04
Funny Or Die At 10: An Oral History
“‘The spirit of it was, ‘Let’s just screw around,” recalls Adam McKay, the onetime SNL head writer and Oscar-winning writer-director (The Big Short) who cofounded the site … ‘We thought we’d tell our friends about it, and maybe it would be a little comedy clubhouse’ … As the site enters the age of Trump, we asked its founders and fans to reveal the smashes, near crashes, and highfalutin fart jokes that helped it become one of the sharpest, funniest forces in pop culture.
You May Not Be A Philosopher, But You Can Start Thinking Like One
We want to say one word to you. Just one word. Are you listening? Heuristics.
The Jamaican Dance Style Keeping Brooklyn Kids Off the Street
Shawn Theagene joined the Bloods at age 12, dealt drugs by age 14, and got a knife in the back of the skull at 15. Twenty years on, he says the ‘bruk up’ style of street dance saved him, and he’s spreading it to others.
Yannick Wants To Get The Met Opera Doing More World Premieres (And He Has Some Composers In Mind)
In a Q&A with Michael Cooper that also touches on how he sees his role as music director (he takes up the post in 2020) and his relationship with General Manager Peter Gelb, Yannick Nézet-Séguin says “The Met for the past few years has been involved in a lot of Met premieres, which were not world premieres … I like this, but I am really passionate about being personally involved in every step of the birth of a new piece. We will definitely get involved again in world premieres. And one way we found to make that work will be through collaborations with [the] Philadelphia [Orchestra],” where YNS is also music director.
‘S-Town’ Smashes Podcast Download Record Set By ‘Serial’
“The original Serial first season took seven weeks to reach 10 million downloads, setting a record at the time in reaching that milestone.” S-Town passed the 10 million mark in four days.
So What Does ‘Cultural Appropriation’ Really Mean, Anyway?
Sparked by the fight over Dana Schutz’s painting of Emmett Till, Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic and the Cato Institute’s Jonathan Blanks debate the question and find more to agree on than one might expect – although, as Blanks says, “I think we have a fundamental disagreement about the responsibility of commentators and activists to cater to the feelings of the people who offend them.”