“For decades, rock bands have acknowledged their influences by reinterpreting the old guys’ songs. It was a kind of Oedipal tribute: honor thy forebears by reinventing them. Our post-postmodern era of mash-ups, music blogs, file sharing and near-instantaneous distribution, however, has given rise to a new phenomenon: a certain species of indie bands is covering their peers’ brand-new songs – in those first heady days of release when the songs seem to be playing in every cafe and club, or even earlier, before they’ve made an impression at all.”
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Hinckley: Lay Off The Rappers
Hip-hop music and culture has been taking a nasty beating in the wider culture in recent weeks, and David Hinckley says that all the brouhaha shows that the critics don’t understand the genre, and aren’t even trying to. “Much of the criticism indicts all rappers and further carries the insulting implication that rap fans take nothing from the music except swaggering self-promotion, derogatory slaps at women and verbal violence… From the ancient Greeks up through opera, folk songs, detective novels and television, entertainment media have focused on excess, that is, behavior beyond normal standards, as a way of making a point. Audiences get this. Rap audiences get this. If violent lyrics really had the direct impact its critics warn about, America’s streets would be knee-deep in dead rap fans.”
Marlene Dumas – Setting The Pace
What accounts for the astounding rise in fortunes of Marlene Dumas? Her work currently holds the record for highest-selling work by a living woman artist. “In 2002, the record for Ms. Dumas’s paintings, only a few of which had come to auction, stood at about $50,000. Yet last month at Christie’s in London, after a bidding war between two dealers, her 1987 painting “The Teacher,” a rendering of a posed class photograph, went for a startling $3.34 million.”
N. Ireland Arts Mag Cut From Gov’t Grant Rolls
“Have you heard the one about the magazine that has been promoting arts and culture in Northern Ireland for more than 30 years but no longer gets a grant from the Arts Council of… er, Northern Ireland? This is not the beginning of some in-house south Belfast joke but sums up the current predicament of Fortnight magazine, the arts, culture and politics review that has been covering life in the Troubles-torn north of Ireland since the early 1970s.”
Wanna See The Art? Wait Here.
The latest blockbuster exhibitions to hit London museums are drawing thousands of visitors who are apparently willing to spend hours waiting in the kind of lines one generally associates with Disney World. “Once inside, having paid £7.50 to see 16 paintings (or 47p a painting) visitors will share their view of each canvas with, on average, eight others. It is not, perhaps, the atmosphere of contemplative isolation that many regard as the ideal conditions under which to observe these masterpieces.” Still, most museum-goers seem to have anticipated the delays and overcrowding, and few are complaining.
Fonteyn & Nureyev: The Untold Chapter
The onstage chemistry shared by Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev was unlike anything the dance world had seen before, and the magic they created together has, arguably, never been equaled. But a new biography and its soon-to-be-made companion film assert that they weren’t only partners onstage. But wait, you ask, wasn’t Nureyev gay? Well… yes. Sort of. But maybe not always.
Why Politicians Can Never Understand The Arts
People in the arts spend a great deal of time bemoaning the lack of governmental support, but is the ignorance of politicians really a great surprise? After all, the arts are everything that politics isn’t: subtle, nuanced, full of deep ideas and gray areas, and imbued throughout with a belief in the intelligence of the audience. “The [UK’s] Labour party used to justify its support of the arts rather as a 19th-century curate’s wife might advocate distributing informative pamphlets to the deserving poor, by their social usefulness… This approach, of course, swaps the robe of the wizard for the coat of the social engineer: it robs art of its chance to enchant.”
How To Listen… Without A Roadmap
“Your average newbie may not be sure why he or she should want to sit through a 30-minute symphony 200 years old, and the field devotes a lot of energy to trying to explain the reasons. Its methods include program notes, preconcert lectures and, increasingly, thematic programs that set out to illuminate the wonders of Beethoven or Charles Ives or Nordic music (whatever that is). But all of this runs counter to the way more and more people listen to music today. Witness the popularity of features like the iPod Shuffle, which yanks music out of context by randomly combining tracks into a musical stew. It’s not about the idea; it’s all about the sound.”
Playing Through The Pain
“Until recently, musicians didn’t talk about their ailments — especially professionals, who feared losing their livelihood. Doctors weren’t trained to deal with these specialties, but that’s changing; clinics have sprung up. A recent survey of orchestra musicians found that 76 percent had suffered at least one playing-related injury serious enough to keep them from working for a period of time. An ear specialist in Texas, after screening Houston Symphony Orchestra members, found permanent hearing loss in some violinists’ left ears, the left being the side exposed to continual sonic blasts from the rest of the orchestra. A 2001 survey revealed that 80 percent of female keyboard players ages 10 to 20 have a muscle-skeletal problem, although no one knows why it’s worse for women.”
Billy Taylor Comes Back
Jazz pianist Billy Taylor seemed to resist the passing of time like the ageless standards he’s always loved to play. But in December 2001, he awoke one morning unable to blink. He has been working his way back ever since, recovering from the stroke that affected the right side of his body, including the right hand that once danced across the keys like Astaire.”