Thank goodness for liquor-law loopholes, because one of them is the reason that Open Jar Studios, a complex normally used for rehearsals, has become the only indoor venue in New York City presenting live performances. The thorough COVID-safety measures that Open Jar has in place could be a good example of what we’ll see elsewhere before long. – Gothamist
Author: Matthew Westphal
More Pay Cuts And Layoffs At Pittsburgh Symphony
“To alleviate the [lockdown-induced budget] shortfall, orchestra musicians have amended their contract to take a 25% cut in base salary in the 2020-21 season and a 50% cut in overscale pay. … Previously, musicians had accepted a cut of 10% in May and then 20% in July. … The administrative staff is changing the status of 30% of its full-time staff — 25 people — through a reduction of hours, furloughs, layoffs and position elimination through attrition.” – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Kennedy Center Spent More Than $50 Million To Present ‘Hamilton’
That amount is almost five times what the complex paid producers to put on the next most expensive show, the Broadway tour of The Book of Mormon in 2015. The price is also more than theaters in other American cities paid, even on a per-performance basis, though higher ticket prices in D.C. made up that difference. Yet the Kennedy Center made back almost all of the money on ticket sales alone, and that’s before the extra revenue from ticket-processing fees, snack and gift shop sales, and new subscriptions. – The Washington Post
Philadelphia Museum Of Art COO To Step Down Next Year (Not At All Because Of This Year’s Scandals)
“[Gail] Harrity, 70, who joined the museum in 1997 as chief operating officer and was named president in 2009” — that is, second-in-command after the museum’s director — “has been on top of virtually every building project of note at the museum for the last 15 years. And there have been plenty.” However, “museum officials said Harrity’s departure was unrelated to the turmoil that has afflicted the institution this year.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer
UK Culture Secretary Says He Wants To See Performance Venues Open As Normal For Christmas
Using articles in this past weekend’s Mail on Sunday and Sunday Times, secretary Oliver Dowden announced what he’s calling “Operation Sleeping Beauty,” a plan “to bring back some of the magic of theatre for families this Christmas … We need to start filling seats in much larger numbers – not just for the audiences, not just for the venues and livelihoods who depend on them, but for the entire urban economy, too.” (The performing arts community is responding with — well, not cautious optimism, more like optimistic caution.) – WhatsOnStage (London)
Longest Concert In History Just Had Its First Chord Change In Seven Years
Back in 2001, a group of people decided to take the tempo direction in John Cage’s 1985 work As Slow As Possible to an extreme and began a performance (of the composer’s 1987 arrangement for organ, Organ²/ASLSP) intended to last 639 years. (Since the score opens with a rest, the first notes didn’t actually begin sounding until early 2003.) On Sept. 5, which would have been Cage’s 108th birthday, performers executed the first chord change since 2013; it was the 14th since the concert began. Catherine Hickey reports on how it was done (and yes, there was a crowd). – The New York Times
How A Speech Coach Saved Janet Malcolm’s Bacon In Her Libel Trial
The first time that Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson’s lawsuit against Malcolm and The New Yorker went to court, she writes, the personal manner she and her colleagues at the magazine had cultivated turned out to be disastrous: the jury ruled against her, and it was amazing luck that they deadlocked on how much to award Masson and the judge declared a mistrial. So she went to see speech coach Sam Chwat, and she recounts here how the things he taught her changed everything the second time around. – The New York Review of Books
There’s One Country In The Americas Where An Indigenous Language Is Still In Constant Use
“Paraguayan Guaraní – a language descended from several indigenous tongues – remains one of the main languages of 70% of the country’s population. And unlike other widely spoken native tongues – such as Quechua, Aymara or the Mayan languages – it is overwhelmingly spoken by non-indigenous people.” – The Guardian
‘Patriotism Ain’t No One Song’ — A Classical Critic Considers America’s Anthems (Plural)
Michael Andor Brodeur looks at the NFL’s decision to add “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” to “The Star-Spangled Banner” before games, and ponders other anthems (because that’s what they are) ranging from “God Bless America” to “This Land Is Your Land” to “The Times They Are A-Changin'” to “Born in the U.S.A.” (and maybe even “Strange Fruit”). “However varied these many musical visions of patriotism may be, they share common concerns: struggle, tension, transition, uncertainty, progress. These are not songs that chant U! S! A! (although Bruce does comes close) so much as walk its roads, fight its wars, bear its burdens.” – The Washington Post
Jazz Was Born As Resistance Music. It Got Institutionalized. Can It Get Its Protest Mojo Back?
“As it evolved, jazz remained a resistance music precisely because it was the sound of Black Americans building something together, in the face of repression. But at the end of the 1960s, … schools and universities across the country began welcoming jazz as America’s so-called ‘classical music,’ canonizing its older styles and effectively freezing it in place. … Partly as a result, the music has become inaccessible to, and disconnected from, many of the very people who created it: young Black Americans, poorer people and others at the societal margins.” – The New York Times