“The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday unveiled criminal charges against 10 defendants, including London-based brokerage Beaufort Securities Ltd, over their alleged roles in a more than $50 million stock fraud and a laundering scheme involving a late work by Pablo Picasso.”
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With Lincoln Center Festival Gone, Mostly Mozart Expands Programming Beyond Music
Lincoln Center announced in the fall that it was pulling the plug on the Lincoln Center Festival, the multidisciplinary summer festival it had presented since 1996. Officials said that the move was partly intended to save money, … but there was also a desire to consolidate programming: Lincoln Center Festival was in some ways essentially competing with Mostly Mozart, which had expanded its range in recent years.”
Harvey Schmidt, 88, Composer Of ‘The Fantasticks’ And ‘110 In The Shade’
“The Texas-born songwriter met his longtime lyricist Tom Jones when they were both students at the University of Texas/Austin in the late 1940s, and over the course of a career that spanned nearly the next half-century, Mr. Schmidt never wrote with anyone else.” Their most famous show, The Fantasticks, had the longest run of any play in American history: 17,162 performances over nearly 42 years in a small off-Broadway theater.
Tefaf Moves Beyond Maastricht And New York In Attempt To Become ‘Global Brand’
“The European Fine Art Fair in Maastricht, the Netherlands, long recognized as the world’s reigning showcase of museum-quality art and antiques, is not just a destination art fair anymore but a global art brand. Or at least that is the aim of the Dutch foundation that runs the fair.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 03.05.18
Anne-Sophie Mutter and André Previn: Music from the divorce that didn’t work
Anne-Sophie Mutter has long maintained supreme artistic poise in the classical violin world, but the wild card in her repertoire has often come from her ex-husband, the multi-Oscar-winning composer André Previn. … read more
AJBlog: Condemned to Music Published 2018-03-05
Misunderstood and Maligned
Poor Grant Wood. Seventy-years after his death, his work is widely known – thanks to American Gothic – but equally widely misunderstood, under-appreciated and, recalling the old insult to George W. Bush, misunderestimated. … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2018-03-04
Tainted money
[Jerry Saltz’s] is not the first, nor will it be the last, protest over donations to an art or educational institution from a questionable source. How should we think about this? … read more
AJBlog: For What It’s Worth Published 2018-03-04
Dispatched from the Audition Room
I say to colleagues that our personal artistic opinions are not as important in considering prospective students as our expert evaluation of their potential. It may be quite difficult to make such a distinction. … read more
AJBlog: PianoMorphosis Published 2018-03-05
Gershwin’s “Rhapsody In Blue” Encapsulates Struggles For The Soul Of American Music
When the “Rhapsody” bowed, classical was seemly, jazz the outsider. By the time the jazz-band version was again in the ascendant, jazz itself had become “America’s classical music.” Now, both traditions are marginal to popular-music dominance. Near the end of the 1996 Ben Folds Five single “Underground” — a cheery, piano-pop ode to more hard-core musical subcultures — Folds, at the piano, drops in a quote from “Rhapsody in Blue.” Even the most daring cross-stylistic experiment eventually occupies just another niche. Nevertheless, the work’s competing forces still jostle for space. To perform the “Rhapsody” is, in part, an exercise in diplomacy.
Time For Dancers To Stand Up And Speak Out!
Supply and demand is one thing, but it’s heartbreaking to hear that lousy conditions follow. Does it have to be that way? The idea of self-value brings me back to the Ailey dancers, and why their disobedience — their independence — is encouraging. As artists elsewhere have been speaking up about their treatment, the Ailey dancers, in their acts of wordless absence, have joined those ranks. Theirs is a story of dancers finding a voice in a very public way, and drawing strength from one another. Dance can be seen as a passive world, until a group of artists boycotts their gala. By spotlighting the economics behind what they do, they reveal another facet of a dancer’s life.
Update On State Funding For The Arts In The US
Pam Breaux of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies: Overall, state governments invest $357.5 million in state arts agencies; that represents about $1.08 per capita. During fiscal year 2018, legislative appropriations to state arts agencies decreased by 2.4%; yet, there are distinctions among the states. Twenty-two state arts agencies reported increases in 2018; fifteen reported flat funding, and nineteen reported decreases (50 states and 6 jurisdictions total). The most significant revenue challenge faced by state arts agencies is that they’re inextricably linked to fluctuations in state tax coffers.
The Mystery Behind Frank Lloyd Wright’s Southern California Houses
Christopher Hawthorne: Was there some link between the violence in Wright’s personal life that sent him careening to California and the work he produced here? And what was it about pre-Columbian ruins that made them so attractive to Wright in the 1920s as the basis for an experimental, concrete-block L.A. architecture?
Jazz’s Next Stars: From The UK (And They’re Reinventing)
“It’s a strange word, ‘jazz,’ The people I revere as master jazz musicians have said they don’t want the word. It’s limiting. It tells them more what they can’t be than what they can. So – do I consider myself a musician who is limited?”