AI could easily compose a Vivaldi-like (Italian Baroque) piece that, if used as transitional music in a documentary or under dialogue and sound effects, would more than do the job. Could a lifelong, professional musician tell that piece was written by AI? Maybe. It depends on too many factors to go into here. Could a discerning audience? Highly doubtful. – Shelley Palmer
Blog
Hudson Yards’ Shed: A Big Experiment In Mixing Audiences
It cost $500 million. It’s in the most expensive real estate development in America. But what it really is, says director Alex Poots, is a big experiment in trying to mix audiences that don’t typically interact. How? Presenting new work not seen anywhere else, and getting tickets into the hands of people who might not typically think about coming. – Washington Post
Raggin’ the Classics
Electronica artist Max Cooper and I launch a new project this spring, a collaboration called Glassforms. We overlay electronic sounds — onto piano music by Glass. There have been Glass remixes before; Glassforms is something else. – Bruce Brubaker
How Instagram Is Ruining Our Iconic Wild Spaces
“It is now axiomatic that a locale of stunning natural beauty will quickly degrade into a morass of crowding once it is posted on the platform as a pristine image. The herd instinct kicks in, and other users who also want to be photographed in those same lovely landscapes converge with their own cameras and Instagram accounts and followers—ad infinitum, ad nauseam.” – The New Republic
LACMA Counterpoint: An Art Historian Argues In Favor Of The Museum’s Radical Makeover
Brian T. Allen argues that LACMA’s new Zumthor makeover of its campus is just what the museum needs. “Donna Reed and Celeste Holm were attractive and workable. Lana Turner was fabulous. L.A. will always crave fabulous… I think a big, Met-style museum in Los Angeles is culturally counterintuitive, and I mean the civic culture. In L.A. style, it’s time to do something fresh.” National Review
An Argument Against A Darker Reinterpretation Of “Oklahoma!”
Judith Miller: “It is one thing to emphasize the darkness that lies beneath this iconic musical’s cheery surface. It is another to turn what Rodgers and Hammerstein intended as a celebration of the American spirit into a sanguinary condemnation of it.” – City Journal
A Polemic Against Podcasts
Chris Richards: “I think they’re tedious and samey and sedative, and when I’m feeling especially cranky, I consider them an enemy of music. Most podcasts are conversations for people to eavesdrop on — recorded talk that precludes real-life talk about real life with zombie talk about podcasts. Also, I like music. With all of the world’s unheard songs beckoning us with their endless mystery, why would anyone choose to waste their precious listening hours on a podcast?” – Washington Post
Eleven Countries Vote Against EU’s New Copyright Overhaul
This surprising turn of events does not mean the end of Link Tax or censorship machines, but it does make an adoption of the copyright directive before the European elections in May less likely. – Julia Reda
Given The Hype: Mueller Report Soars To Top Of Amazon Bestseller List
There’s a solid history of such books — the Starr Report and the 9/11 Commission Report were bestsellers; the latter was a National Book Award Finalist.” – CNN
New China International Piano Competition: $150,000 Prize And The Philadelphia Orchestra
Two of the most admired figures in classical music competitions are in charge: Yoheved Kaplinsky, chair of the piano department at the Juilliard School in New York, is the competition’s artistic director and jury chair; Richard Rodzinski, who has run the Van Cliburn and Tchaikovsky competitions, is general director.Not that either one was particularly excited about the prospect – at first… Chicago Tribune