The Watershed, built in a then-condemned metal factory space that’s about a six-minute ferry ride from the Institute of Contemporary Art’s main building, opens to the public on July 4.
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Gianandrea Noseda Of National Symphony Named Music Director Of Zurich Opera House
“Like many courtships, this one was sealed with a ring. The Italian conductor Gianandrea Noseda, the music director of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, had left an operatic post this spring at the Teatro Regio in Turin, Italy, amid administrative and political upheaval. The Zurich Opera House came calling. ‘I said, ‘Do you want to be my chief conductor?” Andreas Homoki, the artistic director in Zurich, recalled recently. Then he offered Mr. Noseda the icing on the cake: ‘I said, ‘Do you wanted to do the Ring with me?””
For Second Time, Wildenstein Family Of Art Dealers Cleared Of Tax Fraud Charges
“In fewer than five minutes in a Paris appeals courtroom on Friday, June 29, the surviving members of the art-dealing Wildenstein clan were cleared, for a second time, of defrauding French tax authorities out of millions of euros. The presiding judge in Paris’s court of appeals upheld the decision reached after a previous trial in January 2017.”
Vasily Petrenko Is Next Music Director Of London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
The Russian conductor takes up the post at the beginning of the 2021-22 season, at which time he’ll step down from his current position at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, where he will have spent a successful 15 years. Petrenko succeeds Charles Dutoit, who resigned this year following accusations of sexual harassment and assault.
A Visit To Göbekli Tepe, The Oldest Known Temple On Earth
Yasmine Seale: “One morning in May I stood in a dark room in southern Turkey, watching blue-skinned early humans domesticate wheat between bouts of interpretive dance. They were holograms, and they swayed across the walls to a doomy arrangement of bells, drums, and spectral voices: the soundtrack to the dawn of time. The display was a concession to drama in an otherwise austere complex of new museums – low, tan, elliptical structures tucked into a dip in the Harran plain – built to ease visits to Göbekli Tepe.”
Masha Gessen Remembers A Great Russian Poet Who Lived Unrecognized In The U.S.
“His name was Naum Korzhavin. He wrote three poems that all Russian readers of poetry can quote, and many can recite by heart. Of his ninety-two years, he spent forty-five living in the United States (forty-three of them in Boston, until the death of his wife, Lubov, two years ago; he then moved to Chapel Hill to be near his daughter). Still, he was one of the most significant Russian poets in a century that tragically called forth a lot of poetry.”
Today’s AJBlog Highlights 07.02.18
Monday Recommendation: Cyrille Aimée Cyrille Aimée Live (Mack Avenue) Cyrille Aimée is not a gypsy, but she has Roma fervor and intensity reminiscent of Django Reinhardt’s. It’s no wonder; when she was a little girl in northern France … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2018-07-02
Handguns, the Press, and Annapolis Almost a quarter century ago, I worked as intern, in my last year of journalism school, at the Baltimore Sun. This was a rough few months for me — I earned nothing for five-days-a-week … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrash Published 2018-07-02
Driving down 68 today the old van rose up a / few feet and flew into a windless corridor / and only then did I realize it had something / to do with you. / … read more
After Nobel Lit Cancellation, A New Academy Plans To Award Alternative Prize
The scandal, which kickstarted debate about the academy’s patriarchal nature and fights in the Swedish media between academicians, led to a wave of resignations and to the postponement of this year’s prize “in view of the currently diminished academy and the reduced public confidence”. In its place, more than 100 Swedish writers, actors, journalists and other cultural figures have formed the New Academy, which will hand out its own award this autumn, following the same timeline as the Nobel.
Ambitious New Arts Center Rises In The Occupied West Bank
Rising from a series of limestone terraces above a scrubby valley of olive trees, this metallic box is the new $21m (£15.95m) home for the AM Qattan Foundation, an arts centre that its founders hope will stand as a “beacon of culture” in the occupied West Bank. “It is more than just an arts centre,” says Omar Al-Qattan, the Beirut-born, British-educated chairman of the foundation. “We hope it might be a modest microcosm of urban public life, something that Palestinian cities lack.”
Should Theatre Come With Trigger Warnings? Cue The Debate
The debate about if and when to use them has the theatre community deeply divided. These new type of audience advisories warn of specific plot points that may provoke psychological trauma in some audience members. But some theatre professionals worry these warnings strip theatre of its power to provoke an emotional reaction and are a form of self-censorship.