Author: Matthew Westphal

Charles Hamlen, Beloved Classical Music Manager Who Founded AIDS Charity Classical Action, Dead At 75

“[His] rise to the zenith of the classical music world — as a co-founder of IMG Artists, which represented many of the biggest stars in the field — was improbable, as he was the first to admit. He was a high school French teacher and playing piano on the side when he moved to New York in 1977 to try to make it as an artists’ manager.”

Little-Known Hemingway Short Story Published For First Time

“Not seen by many beyond scholars and academics over the last six decades, the story” – “A Room on the Garden Side”, written in 1956 – “takes place in Paris’s Ritz hotel and is narrated by a character called Robert, who shares the author’s own nickname, Papa. Robert and his entourage of soldiers, who are all due to leave the city the next day, drink, quote Baudelaire and debate ‘the dirty trade of war’.”

Jacques Wirtz, 93, Renowned Landscape Architect

“Mr. Wirtz, whose career began when he opened a flower nursery in 1946, would decades later be compared to André Le Nôtre, the French landscape architect who designed the magnificent gardens of Versailles. … [He] designed gardens for private residences, large estates, public parks, museums, college campuses and corporate headquarters.”

No More Free Sundays At Colosseum, Uffizi, Etc., Says Italy’s New Government

“The new culture minister of Italy’s populist coalition government, Alberto Bonisoli, has [announced] that a monthly free-entry initiative at the country’s museums and monuments is coming to an end. Since July 2014, more than 480 state-run cultural sites, including Pompeii, the Uffizi and the Colosseum, have been free to visit on the first Sunday of every month. Known as Domenica al museo (Sunday at the museum), the policy was one of many culture reforms introduced by Bonisoli’s centre-left predecessor, Dario Franceschini.”

Hollywood’s Age Of Anxiety: People In The Industry Are Stressing Themselves Out More Than Ever

“Speak to writers, producers, actors and executives — speak, in fact, to the whole chain of employees toiling across the film, television and music industries, as THR did — and you’ll have trouble finding people who won’t admit to heightened feelings of stress, anxiety and depression, three interlinked mental-health issues that have escalated over the past decade in the entertainment sector. … The current industry turbulence has set alarm bells ringing louder than at any time since the Great Recession.”