Françoise Nyssen, France’s culture minister, made headlines when she suggested that the Louvre might send its best-known painting, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, on a “grand tour”. The museum, however, has politely rebuffed the proposal.
Blog
El Sistema Faces Tough Times In Venezuela Following Founder’s Death
“Executive director Eduardo Mendez said the program must overcome a crippling economic crisis that has forced hundreds of musicians to leave the country and move on from the loss of José Antonio Abreu, who created the orchestra network known as El Sistema. … He said 8 percent of the program’s teachers have recently left the country to seek a better life abroad. The network’s marquee Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra has lost 42 percent of its musicians over the past six months, though most of the vacancies have been filled with younger musicians.”
As Artistic Director Leaves, Madison Ballet Contracts By More Than Half
“Facing an uncertain future with the departure of its longtime artistic director” – W. Earle Smith, who’s been at the helm since 1999, leading the company’s transition from community-based to professional and adding a ballet school – “Madison Ballet plans to cut its company of dancers by more than half and drastically trim its season for 2018-19. But its leaders insist the company – part of the city’s artistic landscape for decades – will keep dancing.”
Jacqueline Woodson Wins World’s Largest Children’s Book Prize ($600K)
The American author is this year’s winner of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, funded by the Swedish government in honor of the author of the Pippi Longstocking books. “Woodson made her children’s debut in 1990 with Last Summer with Maizon, first in a trilogy exploring the friendship of two girls. Her 2014 memoir-in-verse, Brown Girl Dreaming, received the National Book Award.”
How Exactly Does Orpheus Chamber Orchestra Make The No-Conductor Thing Work?
Reporter Mark MacNamara talks to members past and present about how the collective’s members make musical decisions, how they give each other feedback, what kind of person makes a good Orpheus member (meek and deferential won’t cut it), and whether the Orpheus model cam work elsewhere.
Canceled Deals And Pulped Books, Unintended Casualties Of Publishing’s #MeToo Moment
“The list of prominent authors mired in harassment scandals has grown in recent months, and now includes best-selling children’s book authors, prominent political journalists and a National Book Award-winning novelist. As allegations of sexual harassment sweep through the publishing industry – resulting in canceled book deals, boycotts by bookstores and expulsions from writers’ conferences – publishers, agents and editors are grappling with how to tackle the issue … as they cut ties with accused men in hopes of minimizing any collateral damage.”
‘The Diary Of Anne Frank’ With A Multiracial Cast Makes Sense In 2018 America
Russell M. Dembin: “For me it was more than fine: [the] casting elevated the play to another level, embracing the characters’ Jewishness while speaking to a time in which many people, not only American Jews but especially communities of color and other historically marginalized groups, feel less safe and welcome in this country.”
Multiracial Productions Of ‘The Diary Of Anne Frank? Bad Idea
Wendy Rosenfield: “Even without seeing them, I know this much: Anne’’ story isn’t multicultural; it’s Jewish. … This would all be admirable if the voices at the center of the (nonfiction) story weren’t already marginalized, and weren’t marginalized further by a casting process that once again sought to replace the attic denizens’ identities with something more ‘universal.'”
Can Sponsoring Critics Be A Workable Model? This Sponsored Critic Says Yes
Fergus Morgan, whose six-reviews-a-week gig covering London’s Vault Festival was paid for by the local business improvement district: “The standard concern raised is that subsidised criticism jeopardises the integrity of the artist-critic relationship, that a reviewer’s opinion of a production will be skewed if he relies on the show itself for his livelihood. It’s a valid concern, but there are innumerable ways around it.”
Are Arts Orgs Being Too Profligate With Naming Rights?
With institutions ever more reliant on the big gifts that come with naming rights to fund new facilities or renovations – and especially when, as with the Sacklers or Kochs, controversy gets attached to those names – do cultural organizations need to be more cautious?