“History has seen the steepest decline in majors of all disciplines since the 2008 recession, according to a new analysis published in the American Historical Association’s Perspectives on History. ‘The drop in history’s share of undergraduate majors in the last decade has put us below the discipline’s previous low point in the 1980s,’ reads the analysis.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Sphinx Starts New Program To Train Minority Classical Music Administrators
The Detroit-based Sphinx Organization, which for 22 years has run education programs and competitions to develop black and Latinx classical music performers, “is launching a leadership development program with educational and mentorship components aimed at cultivating black and Latinx candidates for leadership positions in orchestras, conservatories and music schools across the country.”
See Ancient Rome At The Height Of Its Glory Via Virtual Reality
“The ambitious undertaking, [titled Rome Reborn and] painstakingly built by a team of 50 academics and computer experts over a 22-year period, recreates 7,000 buildings and monuments scattered across a 5.5 square mile stretch of the [imperial capital, circa 320 AD].”
24 Hours, Three Cities, 75 Dancers, 300 Solos, All Streamed Live: Merce Cunningham’s 100th Birthday
“‘Night of 100 Solos: A Centennial Event’ will take place on what would have been Cunningham’s 100th birthday, 16 April 2019. The three productions, each lasting 75 minutes, will be live-streamed, which means audiences around the world can see the Barbican performance [in London], followed by one a few hours later at Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York, and finally one at UCLA’s Centre for the Art of Performance in Los Angeles.”
An ‘Amahl And The Night Visitors’ Staged In A Soup Kitchen, With A Chorus Of Formerly Homeless People
The site-specific New York company On Site Opera, which has already staged productions at a mannequin showroom, Harlem’s Cotton Club, the Bronx Zoo, and Madame Tussaud’s, is presenting Gian Carlo Menotti’s Christmas opera at the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen, with the chorus recruited from the clients of Breaking Ground, which provides permanent housing and services for the homeless.
NPR’s ‘Fresh Air’ Fires Movie Critic David Edelstein
The popular interview show hosted by Terry Gross cut ties after Edelstein posted on Facebook an ill-considered joke (subsequently deleted) about the stick-of-butter scene in Last Tango in Paris that was widely condemned on social media as offensive.
What’s David Edelstein’s Firing Over A Brain-Fart Joke Really About?
“None of this should have happened, but it did,” writes Andrew O’Hehir, Salon‘s executive editor and sometime film critic. “I suspect what befell Edelstein this week is only partly about one stupid Facebook post, and has more to do with the messy process of generational change and the inevitable Schadenfreude surrounding someone who holds two prestigious media jobs, either of which many other people would kill and eat their grandmothers to get.”
After More Than 60 Years, Detroit Rep Will Get A New Artistic Director
“While no date has been set, [the Detroit Repertory Theatre’s] longtime artistic director and co-founder, Bruce Millan — who helped launch the company in 1957 — has announced he’s begun planning for his retirement. When that happens, Leah Smith, the Rep’s marketing and development director, will step into his considerable shoes. The Detroit News spoke with Millan and Smith at the theater last week.”
Unknown John Donne Manuscript Found In A Box In The Corner
“Dating back 400 years, the [handwritten] bound collection was kept for at least the last two centuries at Melford Hall in Suffolk. Sotheby’s expert Dr Gabriel Heaton was on a ‘standard checking visit’ to the property when he found it in a box with other papers.”
Yannick Nézet-Séguin Will Share Met Opera’s New Commissions With Philadelphia Orchestra
In a Q&A with David Patrick Stearns, the music director of the two institutions says of new operas in the works from composers Kevin Puts and Mason Bates, “We will be workshopping these pieces in collaboration with the Curtis Institute. The Philadelphia Orchestra will premiere the scores in a concert presentation prior to the full production at the Met.”