“Choreographer Hofesh Shechter is to guest direct Brighton Festival 2014, an annual mixed arts event that takes place across the city. Shechter, who is also a composer and musician, will open the festival with his contemporary dance company’s new production in May.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Is Crowdfunding The Next Shot (Or Kick) The Arts In Australia Need?
“In the US, Kickstarter funds more arts-related projects than the National Endowment for the Arts. Could a similar thing happen in Australia? Could crowdfunding make up the shortfall in artistic budgets or help more emerging artists? Or will even more demands for spare dollars just weary arts supporters?”
Hollywood Thinks Its Market Research Is Awful
“Audience tracking, a cottage industry created in the 1970s, works principally by polling viewers at test screenings to gauge interest and awareness of a film, or over opening weekend to provide a window on a movie’s demographics. … Many in the film industry believe that current tracking systems, which have been loudly criticized this summer for considerable inaccuracies in predicting opening weekend box office, are in dire need of improvement to better determine the viewing habits of today’s moviegoers.”
The Music Changed Everything: A Film Critic On 2001: A Space Odyssey With The New York Philharmonic
Richard Brody: “Kubrick’s movie, which I hadn’t seen since college and always recalled with slight derision for its dated paranoid bombast, came to immediate life … It was the music that effected this change, starting with the excerpt from Ligeti’s Atmosphères. Employed as an overture, it immediately sets a very high bar for the artistic originality required for the movie not to wither and shrink from the screen in full public view.”
Minnesota Orchestra Makes New Contract Offer To Locked-Out Musicians
“The Minnesota Orchestra sweetened its offer to locked-out musicians Thursday, after an 11th-hour fundraising effort led by Marilyn Carlson Nelson, one of Minnesota’s wealthiest people. The latest proposal in the bitter yearlong dispute includes a $20,000 one-time bonus to each musician, to help offset a pay cut that would reduce base salaries over three years.”
Madrid’s Teatro Real Makes Up With Gérard Mortier, Two Weeks After Firing Him
While being treated for cancer this month, Mortier found himself replaced as artistic director of Spain’s largest opera house after suggesting publicly that there were no Spaniards fit to succeed him. Now, doubtless to avoid a lawsuit, the Real has named Mortier artistic adviser. Says the house’s president, “There has been absolutely no firing” – just a switch to a position “with less concrete functions.”
Hilliard Ensemble To Disband After 40 Years
The British vocal quartet – which was founded in 1973 to specialize in medieval and Renaissance music but in recent years has earned its plaudits singing contemporary works – will give a special reunion concert with former members this December, do a set of farewell tours through next year, and retire after a final performance in London in December 2014.
Elegy For A Poet Murdered In The Nairobi Siege
Kofi Awoonor, considered Ghana’s greatest modern writer of poetry, in Nairobi for a pan-African literary festival, was one of dozens killed in a Somali terror group’s occupation of the Westgate mall. Teju Cole pays tribute to Awoonor and reports from a memorial held at the festival.
Cherry Jones On Her Vanity As An Actress
“I’ve had really good luck with my looks. I had them when I needed them but never too much that I couldn’t obliterate them with great ease when I didn’t. I have this ridiculous big round moon-pie face and this kooky smile and no eyes left whatsoever. … It’s a good character face. So I guess my vanity usually is about how successfully I can pull off the character.”
Woody Allen Is Not A Fan Of Feelings
“Ninety-nine per cent of decisions are predicated on feelings – instinctive, emotional, fears, conflicts, unresolved childhood problems. They’re our dominant motivating factor, not reason or rationality or common sense. And that’s why the world is in a terrible, terrible state.”