Author: Matthew Westphal

Shakespeare Asks: Which Is The More Legitimate King — The One Chosen By God Or The One Chosen By The People?

“Richard II is God’s anointed representative on earth, but by the end of the play that bears his name, he’s dead and his cousin sits on his throne. This is the story of how Shakespeare used English history to ask still-relevant questions about legitimacy, and about how a performance of Richard II played a role in the last aristocratic rebellion against the English crown.” (podcast)

How Much Do Major Art Prizes Really Help Their Recipients In The Market?

With numerous winners, past and present, showing work at this year’s Art Basel, Gareth Harris surveys recent history – and artists and gallerists – over how much difference these awards make and whether the trouble and expense artists go through for them is worthwhile. (Last year, the finalists for one major prize insisted they be paid for the exhibitions they had to put together.)

Inside Simon Rattle’s All-Amateur Orchestra At The Berlin Philharmonie

George Gelles, the former executive director of San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and a lifelong (though never pro) French horn player, writes about taking part in the Be Phil Orchestra, 101 non-professional musicians from the world over, chosen by online audition, who spent a week getting coached by members of the Berlin Philharmonic, rehearsing and performing Brahms’s First Symphony under Simon Rattle.

Reconsidering The Audience-Artist Contract (Let’s Stop Walking Out On Work We Don’t Get)

Maura Hogan, in a Spoleto Festival USA post-mortem: “Perhaps some among us view our annual arts dive as simply transactional. The customer is always right, so we can bolt from or belittle performances as we see fit. I would argue that we are missing the point. Ditching a performance mid-show is at best disruptive, and potentially far more insidious. … What’s more, if you truly have pride in place regarding our singular city, I can promise you that the provincial attitudes regarding its relationship with world-class performance telegraph that if you scratch the surface — if you go beyond the high-end Boho apparel and performance belt-notching — the walk-outs and sneers render us collectively a bunch of yahoos.”

If Dana Schutz Can Paint Emmett Till, Then This Guy’ll Just Paint Dana Schutz’s Son

“The Somali-Australian artist Hamishi Farah … was among the artists who signed an open letter condemning [Schutz’s image of the murdered Emmett Till, titled Open Casket, at last year’s Whitney Biennial]. His painting at [Art Basel], called Representation of Arlo (2018), is a direct response to Schutz’s painting. ‘The viewer’s response to the work creates the situation whereby they hopefully reach some point of self-reflexivity, regarding their responses to situations where white artists appropriate black bodies’, Farkas says.”

New York Philharmonic May Finally Let Its Female Musicians Wear Pants Onstage

“Bowing to pressure from women who argued that the dress restrictions were not only unfair, but could also hinder their ability to play comfortably, other major orchestras have moved in recent years to let women wear pants if they choose. … The Philharmonic, alone among the nation’s 20 largest orchestras, does not allow women to wear pants for formal evening concerts. That could soon change. The orchestra — the oldest in the United States, with its 176th season wrapping up — has quietly been talking about modernizing its dress code.” (It’s also considering letting the men ditch the white tie and tails.)

In 2018, Why Is The Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra All Male?

Clea Simon: “Contemporary jazz … is full of journeymen female musicians. … An internationally touring ensemble, [Wynton] Marsalis’s band is the flagship jazz orchestra of the day, the one that he is using to establish the importance of jazz around the world. Taking the stage with 15 musicians, none of whom is female, presents the music as segregated and outdated.”