Officials confirmed that, following some very difficult years and the aftermath of the bitter 2010-11 strike, the DSO has posted the second balanced budget in a row and renewed contracts with music director Leonard Slatkin and president Anne Parsons through 2016-17.
Author: Matthew Westphal
Richard Linklater On The Hardest Scene To Write In His 12-Year Epic “Boyhood”
“If there was one scene that felt like it was looming over all those years, it was the good-bye scene. I knew that the last shot of the movie would be Mason at college meeting someone – I had that in my mind for ten years, and I was looking forward to that – but I knew that the scene before it had to be the emotional break of the movie, when son parted from mom. It’s where Boyhood kind of ends emotionally, although spiritually, it continues.”
Atlanta’s Woodruff Arts Center Receives Largest-Ever Gift, $38 Million
The grant from the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation includes $25 million for the endowment (pledged as matching funds) and $13 million for capital improvements, in particular at the Alliance Theatre. (The Woodruff also includes the Atlanta Symphony, which locked out its musicians for the first nine weeks of this season, and the High Museum of Art .)
Irene Dalis, 89, Star Mezzo-Soprano And Opera Company Founder
After a two-decade-plus career as one of her generation’s leading dramatic mezzos, Dalis returned to her hometown of San Jose, where she founded Opera San José in 1984 and led it to become a widely-admired regional company with its own theater.
Curtis Institute Of Music Gets $11.5M Gift From Board Chair
“Baroness Nina von Maltzahn is making a $10 million gift to the endowment to establish the Nina von Maltzahn President’s Chair, a post currently held by Roberto Díaz, plus $1.5 million to underwrite the Curtis on Tour program during the next three years.”
Social Science Shows Us How To Give Less-Bad Gifts
“Unfortunately, much of the research shows that all the best gift-giving intentions in the world do not necessarily lead to good gifts. Here’s a brief look at some recently published studies that give us some hints on how to give less-terrible presents this holiday season, or any other time of the year, really.”
Pow! Right In The Canvas! This Video Game Lets You Punch A Monet
“Last week, IRL Monet-puncher Andrew Shannon was sentenced to six years in prison for his actions in 2012 (don’t worry, it has since been restored). As you take your anger out on the Impressionist masterpiece in the digital version, you can see the dollars’ worth of damage add up at the top of the screen – without the repercussions.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 12.15.14
Indianapolis Museum Stirs Up A Hornet’s Nest
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2014-12-15
“Forever Now,” Forever Yesterday: MoMA’s Failed Defense of 21st-Century Painting
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2014-12-15
Fire and Ice: Both Burn
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2014-12-15
Nicholas Carr’s “The Shallows”
AJBlog: CultureCrash Published 2014-12-15
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Visiting The Classical Dept. At The Last Tower Records Left
“But Tower’s flagship Tokyo store, nine stories high, has remained the Godzilla of the world’s record stores, the largest and indestructible. It’s still there, just up the block in the Shibuya district from the busiest intersection in the world. A giant sign in Tower yellow and red reads: No Music, No Life.”
Australian Prime Minister Changes Jury’s Choice For Book Prize, Furor Ensues
The judges for this year’s Prime Minister’s Literary Award for fiction chose to give the $80,000 prize to Steven Carroll for A World of Other People. Then Tony Abbott stepped in (it’s his award, right?) to decree that Carroll should split the prize with Richard Flanagan for The Narrow Road to the Deep North, which had already won this year’s Man Booker Prize. This did not make many people happy.