“[Philharmonic management] said Thursday that it was putting videos of Young People’s Concerts, and additional educational materials and interactive games, online for schools and families to stream for free. … The orchestra is calling the initiative ‘Young People’s Concerts Play!'”
Author: Matthew Westphal
The Lawsuit Over Broadway’s ‘Great Comet’ Is Officially Over (But The Adversaries Still Despise Each Other)
“The unusually ugly who-gets-how-much-credit-for-a-big-Broadway-musical battle was officially resolved on Wednesday, when the commercial producers of Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 agreed to revise the show’s Playbill to give more specific credit to Ars Nova, the nonprofit theater that commissioned the show. … But it appears that hard feelings remain.”
Kay Starr, Country/Pop/Jazz.Blues/Hillbilly Singing Star, Dead At 94
“[Her] hits, for better or perhaps mostly for worse, defined her in the public mind as an empress of schlock pop, an impression that overshadowed a vast amount of high-quality, less commercial work that was widely revered among reviewers and her musical peers.”
America’s Most Un-Christian Church Came To Picket Juilliard, And Juilliard’s Students Rickrolled Them
“Protesters from the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church took a break from their regular pious activities – such as demonstrating at soldiers’ funerals and proclaiming ‘god hates f*gs’ – to picket Thursday morning in front of the Upper West Side’s Juilliard School in Lincoln Center.” (Their stated reasons are quaintly Calvinistic.) Dozens of the school’s young musicians responded by doing what they do best.
Philip Glass Wins A Literary Prize
And no, it’s not for the libretto of Einstein on the Beach. (“1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, …”) It’s for an actual book: his memoir from last year.
Five Cy Twombly Sculptures Go To Philadelphia Museum Of Art
“The artist, who died in 2011, specifically selected the five pieces for exhibition at the museum, shortly before his death.”
Layoffs Are Coming To Ambassador Theatre Group, UK’s Largest Theatre Owner
“The compulsory redundancies are in addition to the voluntary redundancies outlined by The Stage last week.”
Jason Reynolds, C.E. Morgan And Susan Faludi Win 2016 Kirkus Prizes
“The prize, awarded by the literary publication Kirkus Reviews, doles out $50,000 apiece along with the honors in each category. Judges plucked the three winning books from the pool of more than 1,100 books that received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews in roughly the past 12 months.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 11.03.16
When is a novel like a piano? When it’s “treated”
Tom Phillips is the polymath’s polymath. When he gave the Slade Lectures at Oxford in 2006, we gleaned that he is not only a painter, print-maker and a Royal Academician, but also a film-maker, opera librettist and set designer, a fluent writer, translator, composer, and a musician with a fine singing voice. … read more
AJBlog: Plain English Published 2016-11-03
So you want to see a show?
Here’s my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2016-11-03
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Martin Luther, Pioneering Media Manipulator
“Americans may know the basics of how Martin Luther was said to have nailed his 95 theses to a church door … but they probably don’t realize how Luther strategically used the media of his time: books, paintings, prints and music.”