Says the director of the city’s Office of Cultural Affairs, “We don’t live in a Camelot world any more. It’s all about Hamilton. … Our children today take it for granted that culture includes this richer, more exciting, more diverse offering. And if you don’t embrace it, you get left in the dust.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Actor Burt Reynolds Dead At 82
Known for a wry, self-mocking persona and for doing his own stunts (and, offscreen, for a quick temper, hard living, and a tempestuous love life), Reynolds appeared in dozens and dozens of films and TV shows (and directed more than a few) over the decades; from 1978 to 1982, he was the number-one box-office draw. He was most popular in action films and romantic comedies, but he won greatest critical acclaim for performances in Deliverance and Boogie Nights.
Washington National Opera’s New General Director Settles In
Timothy O’Leary comes to the company from a very successful decade running the Opera Theater of St. Louis, writes Anne Midgette. “The companies in St. Louis and Washington are very different animals. St. Louis is a festival, where an intense five- or six-week season, attended by audiences from around the world, is followed by a whole year of planning and gestation. Washington, by contrast, has a year-round season but plays more to local audiences. … When the season is longer, carving out time to be creative, to come up with new ideas and initiatives, is a challenge.”
Four Texas NPR Stations To Launch First Regional Journalism Hub This Fall
“KUT in Austin, Texas Public Radio in San Antonio, KERA in Dallas and Houston Public Media have been in talks for about a year with conference calls on a near-weekly basis. … The journalism hubs are intended to increase regional coverage for both NPR and the stations participating in each collaboration.”
Bobby Lynn Maslen, 87, Whose Bob Books Helped Millions Of Kids Learn To Read
“She compiled three sets of books, with about 12 books in each set and no more than a dozen pages in each book. … Readers encountered only four letters — M, A, T and S — and three-letter words. The texts became gradually more complicated, as letters were added until the first set introduced everything but Q, culminating in a sequence that featured a vet, a van, a big cat and a bad leg: ‘The cat ran zig zag. The vet ran zip zap. ZAM!'”
Call to Action: Want to Help the Fire-Ravaged National Museum of Brazil?
On its Facebook page, Rio de Janeiro’s Museu Nacional do Brazil has posted an “action list” of ways in which concerned museum lovers can participate in what the devastated institution optimistically calls “the reconstruction of the museum.”
Surprising (But Short) Chapter of Georgia O’Keeffe’s Life
Several days ago, I went to the New York Botanical Garden to see its summer exhibition, Georgia O’Keeffe: Visions of Hawai‘i. It included several paintings I knew nothing about. And, as I soon discovered, from talking with friends and posts on Facebook and Instagram, neither did many other art-lovers.
Paul Taylor (1930-2018)
When Paul Taylor died of renal failure on Wednesday, August 29th, and I was coping with that news, I started to think not just of the 140 dances he made during his remarkable career, but of his connection to the great figures of 20th-century dance whose pantheon he joins.
L’ubomir Gašpar’s Cimbal Project: Jazz at the Crossroads Festival
Jazz-World fusions abound, but in general, the musicians that create this music play instruments that have already been integrated into the jazz “sound.” What is less common is to find musicians who play what Howard Mandel would dub “instruments rare to jazz.”
Recent Listening: Scott Reeves and others
Scott Reeves Jazz Orchestra, Without A Trace (Origin)
Wayne Escoffery, Vortex (Sunnyside)
Ivo Perelman, Octagon (Leo Records)
Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong, Cheek To Cheek: The Complete Duet Recordings (Verve)