“If you’re inferring that there is racism in America, it’s not just a black problem, it’s everybody’s problem. For me it’s important that a company looks like the world, or at least reflects its community. Which you don’t see. I hire people based on their talent, and in 30 years this company has looked like everything.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Hip-Hop Dance Has Started Imitating Cartoon Movement (With Flesh-And-Blood People)
Animation dance is “a sub-category of popping [a hip-hop subgenre] that combines a range of skills like strobing, robotics and gliding, and claims inspiration from film animation in its use of splashy dramatic poses and jerky, freeze-frame dynamic.”
One Year After End Of Lockout, Minnesota Orchestra Is Back On Its Feet
“Orchestra Hall is a different place nowadays. Two words never heard during the lockout, ‘optimism’ and ‘collaboration,’ are now on everyone’s lips. Audiences are back, and the orchestra is playing well.”
14 Years After Storming Away, Charles Dutoit May Return To Montreal Symphony
“Charles Dutoit, who led the OSM to glory in the 1980s and 1990s only to resign in bitter circumstances in 2002, will make a comeback as a guest conductor next year if plans unfold as expected.”
The Man Who Tried To Turn Perm Into Russia’s Art Hotbed Gives Up And Emigrates
“Marat Guelman, the Muscovite cultural impresario and political operative who attempted to create a contemporary arts revolution in the Soviet city of Perm, is moving to Montenegro this month to open a new cultural centre. He cites the difficulty of working in Russia and the conflict in Ukraine as factors in his decision.”
Are We Seeing The Start Of A Russian Artists’ Exodus?
“The Russian government-led clampdown on free speech, the Ukrainian conflict and the current economic downturn have prompted some members of Russia’s art world to leave the country, and many others to start weighing their options.”
National Symphony Plays A Packed D.C. Club – And Totally Rocks The Joint
Anne Midgette: “One of the NSO’s signal achievements with this evening was to integrate other kinds of area music without pandering or watering down. … It’s one of the best efforts I’ve seen from an orchestra at this kind of thing.”
Woody Allen To Make Video Series For Amazon
“Amazon has ordered a full season of the Untitled Woody Allen Project, a half-hour series written and directed by the veteran filmmaker. Episodes will be available next year on Amazon’s Prime Instant Video service in the U.S., the U.K. and Germany.”
Robert Stone, 77, Novelist Of Americans At War
The author of Dog Soldiers and A Flag for Sunrise “was widely regarded as one of the most significant novelists of his generation,” often compared to Conrad and Hemingway. “[He] took readers into the underworlds of drugs, violence and strife, both cultural and personal. His characters were sometimes strung out, often morally ambiguous and, above all, real.”
Sir Neville Marriner, Still Conducting At 90
The birthday year of the founder of the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra “has been a big deal in the world of classical music, where the conductor is widely regarded as one of the most prolific, rigorous and amiable musicians of his time.” (By the way, he says audiences are “much more sophisticated nowadays.”)