“The unspecified procedure [at the Cleveland Clinic] was, according to MTT’s statement in his announcement of taking medical leave, ‘in continuation of treatment for a heart condition I have managed for many years.’” – San Francisco Classical Voice
Blog
Prague Has Embraced Kafka As A Hometown Industry
Apart from his tombstone and the old stone buildings, every Kafka attraction I visited was built in the 21st century. Czechoslovakia’s uneasy leaders had tried to scrub Kafka from Prague’s history; now, the city welcomes his lucrative presence every day. – LitHub
The Art Market Is Expensive. So Museums Are Improvising
For museums determined to build collections of today’s contemporary art—which is also getting pricey, as works by women and artists of color steadily gain in value—“it’s a waiting game.” – Barron’s
Report: Classical Music’s Future As A Streaming Service
This vicious circle of song optimization / playlist optimization may be the path of least resistance but it can ultimately lead to an unsatisfying overall music experience. Classical music provides an antidote to the algorithm-defined mainstream, and of the status update driven chaotic maelstrom that is digital life. Now we are starting to see the signs of a new generation of Classical music fans searching for a refreshing, reassuring alternative to the tumult and homogeneity of mainstream. – Music Industry Blog
You Can’t Think Your Way To Being Creative. Here’s What To Do Instead
Some of the earliest scientific studies of creativity focused on personality. And some evidence suggests that innovation comes easier to people with certain personality types. A 1998 review of dozens of creativity studies found that overall, creative people tend to be more driven, impulsive, and self-confident. They also tend to be less conventional and conscientious. – Nautilus
It Doesn’t Have To Be Netflix OR Movie Theatres
Netflix is a business like any other, one locked in a seemingly unresolvable war with the movie-theater industry, which it views as a rival. Twelve percent of Americans see at least one movie a month in theaters; Netflix has about 60 million U.S. subscribers, or a fifth of the country. Both are huge money-making endeavors, and the idea that one has to die for the other to prosper is hard to grasp. – The Atlantic
Hospital As Sound Experience: A Musician’s Critique
It may take a musician’s vocabulary to identify the devil’s interval, but it doesn’t take a musician’s ear to notice that hospitals are acoustically stressful places. Noise is one of the top complaints in hospitals. – The Atlantic
Is Upright Citizens Brigade Circling The Drain?
Just three years ago, it seemed (at least to the outside world) that the company was turning into an improv empire: multiple locations in NYC and LA, a TV deal, corporate workshops, thousands of paying students, and hundreds of comic actors willing to perform for free. Now some of those locations are closing, staff are being laid off, and the owners signed a lease on a new flagship space without knowing that the company was running at a deficit. Writer Seth Simons looks at whether UCB can be saved and whether it should. – Slate
Deep Engagement
As a result of the centrality of government funding for the arts in South America, the emphasis in much of the work in the arts there appears to be on developing connections with communities. Here are several projects I learned of at a conference this month in Santiago, Chile. – Doug Borwick
Propwatch: the telephone in ‘Present Laughter’
Did you see that video of two teenagers baffled by a dial phone? Nothing is guaranteed to make you feel jurassic like watching the routine technology of your childhood appear irrefutably foreign. But cometh the play, cometh the phone. The defining prop, sound effect and plot device of Present Laughter, Noel Coward’s 1942 comedy of vanity, is an ink-black dial phone. – David Jays