“As a planned foreclosure sale of the Schermerhorn Symphony Center nears, conversations between the Nashville Symphony and its lenders are shifting toward reaching an agreement rather than the symphony proceeding with a bankruptcy filing, according to sources familiar with negotiations.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
If The Nashville Symphony Settles With Creditors, Is It Out Of Trouble?
“Assuming a settlement holds, the pressing concern is how the orchestra can avoid a repeat of its present predicament, and satisfy its supporters’ demand for top-notch performances while eyeing the bottom line. For that reason, it’s worth examining how the current situation began.”
Gays In The Military In World War II (And The Author Who Documented Them)
The letters of John Horne Burns, who wrote the once-acclaimed, now-forgotten wartime novel The Gallery, “offer unparalleled insight into the life of a gay soldier at a time when, officially at least, gay soldiers did not exist and, to subsequent generations of traditionalists, never had.”
A Venetian Monet Sells For Nearly $31M At Sotheby’s
Le Palais Contarini “fetched $30.8 million at a Sotheby’s auction in London on Wednesday after a bidding battle jacked up the selling price of the work. The auction of Impressionist and Modern art brought in a total of $165.9 million.”
Sotheby’s May Sell Off Its Own Headquarters
“Sotheby’s, the auction house that has for centuries put other people’s treasures up for sale, is in the early days of exploring whether it should place one of its own on the block: its glittering glass-and-granite-fronted worldwide headquarters on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.”
Bolshoi Ballet’s Sergei Filin Losing Battle To Retain His Sight
“The artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet can now see less than he could after a masked assailant flung acid in his face in January. Sergei Filin has lost 95 per cent of his vision and treatment at a clinic in Germany has failed to halt the deterioration.”
Are Ballet Dancers’ Teeth Too Bright?
Judith Mackrell: “Perhaps in normal daylight, or in front of a bathroom mirror, there’s nothing exceptional about the shade to which these men’s teeth have been whitened. But under stage lighting, an obviously bleached smile can take on a neon brightness. And I’m not alone in finding the effect to be disproportionately distracting.”
Mary Zimmerman Cuts A Tricky Path Through The Jungle Book
“In adapting The Jungle Book for a stage musical, Mary Zimmerman has had to take much into consideration – the Disney film, a mix of music and the possibility of offending audiences.”
NSA Or No NSA, We Are Not Living In Orwell’s 1984
“A few points of similarity, like the monitoring of huge amounts of data without sufficient congressional or legal oversight, do not establish the literary analogy. The rule here is simple: If you are invoking 1984 in a country in which 1984 is available for purchase and can be freely deployed as a rhetorical device, you likely don’t understand the point of 1984.”
Let’s Stop Taking George Orwell’s Name In Vain
“People mention Orwell … to suggest that the writer of Animal Farm and 1984 would disapprove of the activities that Edward Snowden made public. And people may well be right about that. But Orwell would likely disapprove of the use – the overuse – of his name. That’s because Orwell crusaded against clichés like few public figures have before or since.”