A gift from a philanthropist couple has extended the no-entrance-fee policy, previously for children under 14 only, to all Chicagoans under 18 for at least the next 25 years.
Author: Matthew Westphal
In Tense Meeting, Rockettes And Their Boss Debate Planned Performance At Trump Inauguration
A secretly-made recording of a discussion between chief exec James Dolan (also chairman of Madison Square Garden and CEO of Cablevision) and a group of the dancers reveals disagreement and nervousness, as well as some seeming confusion about whether or not this event is mandatory for all dancers.
Rockettes Management Lashes Out Over Press Report On Company Meeting About Trump Inauguration
A statement from the Madison Square Garden Company called the article, on Marie Claire magazine’s website, “beneath the ethical standards of Hearst” and described the anonymous source of the recording of that meeting “deceitful and cowardly.”
$20M Endowment Gift To Amon Carter Museum In Fort Worth
The donation, from the Walton Family Foundation – yes, the Waltons of Wal-Mart, and of the Crystal Bridges Museum – is the largest in the history of this Texas museum dedicated to American art.
Info, Info Everywhere, And We Know Less Than We Think: Pico Iyer On What 2016 Taught Us About ‘The Information Age’
“We’ve never been in a position to devour (or deliver) as much information as we are today, in the age of 24/7 news cycles and social media. We’ve never been so tempted, therefore, to forget that the pool of knowledge is limited; it’s the pool of ignorance, speculation and misunderstanding that is infinite.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 01.03.17
Cry of the Heart
Several months ago, ArtsJournal.com, the host of this blog, posted an article about opera in Great Britain that had the following teaser title: Opera Is Not Too Posh And Exclusive, And If You Think It Is, It’s Your Own Damn Fault, Says Opera Boss … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2017-01-03
Belletto’s Birthday: Two Recordings
This is the birthday of saxophonist and bandleader Al Belletto (1928-2014), providing a perfect reason to listen to two of the recordings he and his sextet made in 1957. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2017-01-03
Nine for Four
In 2009 I heard the Prism Quartet play Pagine, a set of arrangements by Salvatore Sciarrino of works spanning several centuries. I was taken with suppleness of the ensemble, its ability to adapt itself to … read more
AJBlog: Infinite Curves Published 2017-01-03
Derek Gripper’s Classical Kora Transcriptions
The last day of WOMEX is usually taken up with an awards ceremony and last minute networking within the world music community. But this year it found me traveling through Galicia in a bus bound … read more
AJBlog: OtherWorldly Published 2017-01-03
Cast a cold eye
For all its increasingly aggressive incivility, I still get a fair amount of pleasure out of Twitter, enough so that I continue to take part in threads which amuse me sufficiently. Here’s a recent one: … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2017-01-03
‘I Disowned My Native Language’: A Writer’s Confession
Yiyun Li, who writes only in English: “Yes, there is something unnatural, which I have refused to accept. Not the fact of writing in a second language – there are always Nabokov and Conrad as references, and many of my contemporaries as well … It’s the absoluteness of my abandonment of Chinese, undertaken with such determination that it is a kind of suicide.”
‘What Do You Get When 70 Dancers And Coders Meet For A Hackathon?’
“Chaos, yes, but also 18 compelling two-minute performances using both familiar and emerging new media tools, like full-body motion tracking, livestreamed 360-degree video, projection mapping, …” Kelsey Lannin reports from DanceHackDay in San Francisco.
Visiting Disney World Is The Modern Version Of Making A Medieval Pilgrimage, Say Academics
And they may just have a point, at least with respect to some visitors. “In the modern world, a trip to Disney has become a rite of passage that transforms those who make the trek … Disney World resembles a medieval pilgrimage center, designed to connect pilgrims with the supernatural.”
Sharing Everything Online Isn’t Really As Liberating As Some Of Us Think
“When faced with an abundance of digital toys that offer magical levels of connectivity and convenience, many of us succumb to a ‘giddy sense that privacy is kind of stupid’, as Gary Shteyngart [once] wrote.”