Many of the best young players coming out of music conservatories aren’t headed for orchestra jobs (there aren’t many of those). Instead they’re forming ensembles with hip names, and exploring music of our time. – San Francisco Classical Voice
Blog
Nelson Algren’s Strange Midnight Dignity
In his introduction to NEVER A LOVELY SO REAL: The Life and Work of Nelson Algren, Colin Asher begins with “the first thing you should know.” – Jan Herman
Mind’s eye
It struck me a couple of months ago that Mrs. T’s recent travails had made her even more deserving than usual of a just-because-I-love-you present. It took a bit of thinking and even more looking, but I finally succeeded in tracking down a copy of an etching, John Marin’s The Lobster Fisherman, that filled the bill to perfection. – Terry Teachout
The New Jazz Heroes
The Jazz Journalists Association has announced its slate of 2019 Jazz Heroes, people who have made significant contributions to the health, well-being and exposure of jazz in their cities and towns. – Doug Ramsey
The Shed Promised A Different Kind Of Arts Space: Here’s What The Critics Thought Of The First Weekend
The Shed is unconventional. Unusual building, unusual spaces, and a different way of engaging with artists and audiences. The opening weekend was a first chance to see what all the unusuals added up to. Critics’ verdicts? Interesting, maybe, but no one was blown away. – The New York Times
A Data Scientist Makes A Case Against Big Data Analysis Of Literature
“The basic criteria should always be to not confuse what happens mechanically with insight, to not needlessly use statistical tools for far simpler operations, to present inferences that are both statistically sound and argumentatively meaningful, and to make sure that functional operations would not be far faster and more accurate if someone just read the texts. It may be the case that computational textual analysis has a threshold of optimal utility, and literature—in particular, reading literature well—is that cut-off point.” – Critical Inquiry
The Music Genre Wars: Does It Matter How You Label It?
In the 1920s, with the creation of the record industry that followed the development of recording technology and the pre-Depression economic boom, genre began to shift from function to demographics of consumption. Genre became, in music industry parlance, format: defined by who was buying and listening to the record. Immediately, this demographic slotting took on explicitly racial dimensions. – Pacific Standard
The Chaotic Genius Of Gwen Verdon And Bob Fosse Through The Eyes Of Their Daughter
It goes without saying that Fosse and Verdon are far from the only people ever to struggle with internal conflict and resort to self-deception. It’s by virtue of their inner landscape, rather than their glamour and artistic labors, that audiences can find common ground with them. – Washington Post
Trust No One? A Class In Bullshit Examines Our Truth Detectors
Academia being what it is (a place where everything is contested), there has been considerable debate over what exactly qualifies as bullshit. Most of that debate centers on the question of intention. Is bullshit considered bullshit if the deception was unintentionally presented? – Pacific Standard
A Life Without Boredom: The War For Your Attention
The war for your attention is a zero-sum game. If Netflix retains four hours of your day, that’s four hours HBO can’t get. The way for companies to remain competitive is to ensure a never-ending stream of content, which is how we reached the era of content overload. This is how boredom, as a state of existence, died. – OneZero