The thieves “got two paintings by Monet, a Picasso, a Matisse, a Gauguin, a Lucien Freud, and one painting by Meyer de Haan.” [emphasis added] Who? Why?? Morgan Meis susses out some clues.
Author: Matthew Westphal
26-Year-Old Lionel Bringuier To Lead Zurich’s Tonhalle Orchestra
“Lionel Bringuier, resident conductor with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, has been made the chief conductor and music director of Switzerland’s Zurich Tonhalle. His post will begin with the 2014-15 season and will run for four years.”
Dance Is ‘Under Threat’ From UK Education Reforms, Says Sadler’s Wells Chief
Alastair Spalding: “Dance is now second only to football as the most popular activity amongst school children and ranks first among girls … We are currently reaping the rewards that the investment in dance education has brought us … The route to a career in dance is now under threat.”
How Does The Brain Perceive Time?
“One widely held theory suggests that a single brain region acts as a centralised timekeeper – possibly in the basal ganglia or cerebellum. However, a study now suggests that timekeeping is decentralised, with different circuits having their own timing mechanisms for each specific activity. The finding could help explain why certain brain conditions affect our sense of timing.”
Banned Iranian Filmmaker Wins EU’s Top Human Right Award
Jafar Panahi, 52, is one of two winners of the 2012 Sakharov Prize For Freedom Of Thought. “[He] is well known for his humanist films on life in Iran [e.g., The White Balloon, The Circle], but in 2010 he was put under house arrest and banned from filmmaking for 20 years. His 2011 documentary This is Not a Film was smuggled out of the country on a USB stick hidden in a cake.”
Vietnam Sentences Two Songwriters To Prison
“Two musicians in Vietnam whose topical songs are popular among overseas Vietnamese … Vo Minh Tri and Tran Vu Anh Binh were sentenced to four and six years in prison, respectively, on charges of spreading propaganda against the state … They faced possible sentences of up to 20 years.”
Iran Disbands Its National Symphony Orchestra For Second Time
“The Iranian national symphony orchestra has been disbanded for lack of funds, musicians said Monday … Orchestra members told the semiofficial ILNA news agency Monday that they have not rehearsed together and have not been paid for three months. … The orchestra was reactivated just last year, after a two-year break.”
Tehran Symphony, Iran’s Oldest Western Orchestra, Also Nearly Defunct
“Watching [the ensemble] from the front row in late August was Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in what was seen as an endorsement from the ruling theocracy … Just two months later, the musicians are out of work, funding has run dry and a nearly 80-year-old institution that survived wars, coups and the 1979 Islamic Revolution was declared Tuesday in an apparently irreversible ‘coma’ by media.”
Beloved Somali Poet-Playwright Gunned Down
Warsame Shire Awale, a popular poet, playwright and songwriter who was a fixture of Somali culture for three decades, was murdered by gunmen near his Mogadishu home. He had received a number of death threats following his radio plays criticizing and mocking the violent Islamist militia Al-Shabab.
Adapting China’s Great Revenge Tragedy For The RSC Stage
James Fenton: “The Orphan of Zhao, which I have been adapting for the RSC, survives in various versions, going back to what is no more than the lyrics for a set of arias whose music can only be guessed at. A play with songs, its earliest versions date back to the 13th century; the events it describes date back two millennia before that, between 800BC and 600BC.”