“In an interview with The Washington Post, principal oboe player Katherine Needleman said that Jonathan Carney, the orchestra’s concertmaster, approached her for sex when the orchestra was on tour in 2005 and, since she rejected him, has engaged in a consistent pattern of retaliation: ‘daily hostility and efforts to undermine [my] work and authority,’ she said, ‘combined with physical intimidation and threats.'”
Author: Matthew Westphal
‘Green Book’ Takes Top Prize At Toronto Int’l Film Festival
“Peter Farrelly’s Green Book, starring Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali, has joined the search for the next Oscar frontrunner out of the Toronto International Film Festival after picking up the top People’s Choice honor on Sunday. … The first runner-up for the top audience prize was Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk; the second runner-up was Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma.”
Netflix, Amazon, HBO Dominate Emmy Awards
In an article headlined (in part) “Broadcast TV Airs Its Own Funeral,” Scott Feinberg gives a recap of the results, including Best Comedy Series and four other statuettes for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Game of Thrones beating The Handmaid’s Tale for Best Drama Series, and the first Emmy for Henry Winkler in his long career.
Toronto Symphony Selects Its Next Music Director
“Starting with the 2020-21 season — the orchestra’s 99th — the new music director will be Gustavo Gimeno, a 42-year-old native of Valencia, Spain, who has been serving as music director of the Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra since 2015. His TSO contract will be for five years. Sir Andrew Davis, who was music director from 1975 to 1988, is acting as interim artistic director.”
Haruki Murakami Removes Himself From Contention For ‘Alternative Nobel’
The Japanese novelist was, along with Neil Gaiman, Maryse Condé and Kim Thúy, one of four finalists for the New Academy Prize, organized in Sweden after the scandal-plagued Swedish Academy postponed this year’s Nobel for literature. But Murakami, often mentioned as a contender for the Nobel itself, withdrew from consideration, saying, according to organizers, that “his preference is to concentrate on his writing, away from media attention.”
It’s 50 Years Since Theatre Censorship Was Ended In Britain. Here’s What It Was Like Before
The job of policing the morals and decorum of play scripts had been centered in the Lord Chamberlain’s office since 1737, but by the 20th century postwar period, a new generation of playwrights had had enough. Nick Smurthwaite looks at what theatremakers had to go through before 1968 and at the artists who campaigned to change it.
Two Out Of Every Five Britons Think Multiculturalism Is Mucking Up The Country’s Culture: Study
“A large minority of people in the UK believe multiculturalism has undermined British culture and that migrants do not properly integrate, according to some of the broadest research into the population’s attitudes to immigration. The study, conducted over the last two years, also reflects widespread frustration at the government’s handling of immigration.”
Ten Years After: Remembering The Recession
A great number of Americans have “moved on.” Their lives are fine, and the Great Recession is just a bad, dimly recalled memory, like a really bad winter flu from years ago. But for a number of us, it was one of the defining events of our lives.
Lots Of Foreigners The World Over Get Their Ideas About Englishness From Agatha Christie
“Her works are seen as so easy to read, she’s a favourite author of people learning English. Christie is also, by leaps and bounds, the world’s most translated author – so if many people are learning the English language through Christie, they are learning about the English people through her, too.” And not everything all those folks pick up is bogus.
Why It’s So Hard To Make A Movie About Lizzie Borden (And Why People Keep Doing It Anyway)
“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why the Borden murders still grip us. They’re unsolved, they’re grisly, … and they involve a very strange woman. … The problem with ‘reimagining’ the story of Ms. Lizzie Andrew Borden is that, by 2018, there is nothing new under the Fall River sun.”