“A New York startup [called Masterworks] that allows investors to buy a tiny stake in paintings by world-class artists for just $20 has seen a surge in demand during the pandemic, according to its founder, and has bought 15 artworks since the onset of Covid-19 to feed their appetite. A recent $1.52 million initial public offering of a piece by the American graffiti artist KAWS sold out in a few hours.” – Bloomberg
Author: Matthew Westphal
Fort Worth Symphony Loses Its Venue Two Weeks Before Season-Opening Concert
The company that manages the orchestra’s usual home, Bass Performance Hall, changed its mind and decided to keep the building closed through the end of 2020. The orchestra’s CEO said in a public statement, “We were extremely surprised to receive this disappointing news … especially after working with Bass Hall management all summer on detailed plans for a safe reopening.” Things being what they are these days, another option was available on short notice. – Fort Worth Magazine
Academy Sets Inclusion Requirements For Best Picture Oscar
“In a historic move, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Tuesday laid out sweeping eligibility reforms to the best picture category intended to encourage diversity and equitable representation on screen and off, addressing gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity and disability.” – The Guardian
France Allocates €2 Billion To Help Arts And Culture Recover From COVID
“France’s Prime Minister, Jean Castex, … said that the state has earmarked €2 billion ($2.36 billion) for the cultural sector in the wake of the coronavirus” as part of the government’s €100 billion economic recovery plan. “The newly installed Castex told France Inter radio that the state believes ‘culture is an economic activity’ and that ‘the cultural sector has greatly suffered from the crisis … more than others.'” – Deadline
London’s Barbican Centre Reopens For Performances
The Live from the Barbican series will present chamber, jazz, and other programming (including such stars as Bryn Terfel, Sarah Connolly, and the Kanneh-Mason family) from early October to mid-December 2020. Thirty socially-distanced seats for each concert will be available at £20 each; online viewers can stream each performance on demand for 48 hours afterward for £12.50 each. In addition, the resident orchestras, the London Symphony and the BBC Symphony, will begin live concerts at the Barbican in November. – The Guardian
Dorothy Parker’s Ashes: An Odyssey From A File Cabinet To Baltimore To The Bronx
The tale of the author’s cremains, which would likely have amused her as much as irked her, includes appearances by Martin Luther King and the NAACP (to whom she left her estate), Lillian Hellman (more than living down to Mary McCarthy’s opinion of her), activist lawyer and one-time New York City Council President Paul O’Dwyer, and (the hero of the story) a professional tour guide named Kevin Fitzpatrick. – The New Yorker
Houston Ballet Waltzes Into The ‘Bayadère’ Wars
“A Hindu rights activist based in Nevada is accusing the Houston Ballet of cultural insensitivity and is urging it to cancel its upcoming performances of La Bayadère, scheduled for February, saying the ballet set in India ‘trivializes Eastern religious and other traditions.'” (Of course, as the company’s executive director observed, thanks to the coronavirus, it’s still not entirely certain that the run will even happen.) – Houston Press
Pioneering Tuba Virtuoso Constance Weldon Dead At 88
Believed to be the first woman to play tuba in a fully professional orchestra in the U.S., she was hired by the Boston Pops in 1955, after her second time at Tanglewood, and went on to hold positions in the North Carolina Symphony, the Netherlands Ballet Orchestra, and the Kansas City Philharmonic. (For a time, she was acting principal tuba for the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam.) A Florida native, she spent most of her career, more than 30 years, at the University of Miami and the Miami Philharmonic. – The New York Times
How Much Difference Does Rotten Tomatoes Really Make In A Movie’s Success?
“As recently as a few years ago, the movie-review aggregator was seen as something of an industry bogeyman. But is there a correlation between box office receipts and a high (or low) score on the Tomatometer? We dug deep into the numbers to determine that.” – The Ringer
This Manuscript Book May Be The Only Surviving Relic Of Thomas Becket
The elaborate shrine to Becket at Canterbury Cathedral, where he was Archbishop and where he was murdered at the altar by King Henry II’s knights in 1170, was smashed to bits by Protestant iconoclasts during the English Reformation. Every remnant and relic of the man was destroyed. Now an illuminated psalter held at one of the Cambridge colleges has been identified as having belonged to Becket. – Apollo