“London’s answer to New York’s High Line park began to take shape in June after two London architecture firms won a competition to design a landscaped walkway just south of the River Thames that will link new and existing galleries, public works of art and an open-air auditorium.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Can Speaking A Tonal Language Make You A Better Musician?
“If you heard a pair of melodies that differ by just one note, could you tell the difference? If you heard three musical notes, one of which was a tad sharper than the other two, could you pick out the odd one? These are precisely the sorts of tasks that trained classical musicians are very good at. And it turns out that speakers of Cantonese, a language with a built-in series of musical-like tones, are pretty darn good at it, too – better it seems than speakers of English.”
Alina Cojocaru Heads Straight Over From Royal Ballet To ENB
“One of the Royal Ballet’s biggest stars is to join a rival company run by her close friend Tamara Rojo. In a shock move, Alina Cojocaru, 32, is to become a lead principal with English National Ballet – starting just three months after her unexpected resignation from Covent Garden.”
Europe’s Ballet Stars Are Rebelling Against Their Companies
It’s not just Rojo and now Cojocaru leaving Covent Garden for ENB. Osipova and Vasiliev left the Bolshoi for the upstart Mikhailovsky. Mathilde Froustey left the Paris Opera Ballet (!) for San Francisco. And let’s not even start on Sergei Polunin …
London Ballet, Just Like London Buses: You Wait Years for A New Nureyev –
– and then three of them turn up at once.
Fired Cairo Opera House Chief Named Egypt’s Next Culture Minister
“Former Cairo Opera House chairperson Ines Abdel-Dayem has been told by Prime Minister Hazem El-Beblawi that she will be appointed Egypt’s new culture minister, a source has told Ahram Online.”
After 15 Years, Dissident Iranian Filmmaker Sees Her Movies Get Released
“Film-maker Mania Akbari fled her native Tehran last summer. She is determined to examine marriage, abortion, infidelity and lesbianism at home in Iran. She has explored what it’s like to lose your breasts to cancer. She has made films that have upset and shocked the religious establishment. Now, after 15 years of censorship, ‘of living in fear and frustration’, Akbari is finally seeing her films screened commercially for the first time.”
Listen Up, You Naysayers: Alan Gilbert Has Been Terrific For The New York Philharmonic
There’s a sizable contingent that thinks Gilbert’s interpretations of the standard rep are dull. Anthony Tommasini counters that Gilbert is a hard worker, innovative programmer and dedicated public face of the orchestra – and that anyone who can sell out programs of Ligeti and Stockhausen in the U.S. must be a kind of genius.
Major European Classical Recording Distributor Shuts Down
“Codaex’s most prominent clients included the fine Austrian label PentaTone – which launched the career of violin star Julia Fischer, and whose artists today include major conductors Marek Janowksi and Philippe Herreweghe – as well as SOMM, Canadian labels Analekta and ATMA, as well as Australia’s ABC Classics and many, many others.”
Michel Houellebecq To Star As Himself In Film About His ‘Kidnapping’
“He is French literature’s perpetual enfant terrible, with a reputation for bolshy rebelliousness and causing offence. So when Michel Houellebecq, hailed as France’s greatest living novelist, failed to turn up for part of a promotional book tour in the Netherlands and Belgium in 2011, it might have been brushed aside as a mere quirk or oversight.”