“There is real concern that at a time when the need to insure for [COVID risks] is even greater, venues and organisations will not be able to obtain or afford appropriate coverage. This is not just limited to cancellations, but a host of insurance products normally taken out by organisations, for which there are currently limited or no offers available from providers.” – The Stage
Blog
Hollywood Finally Gives In – Will Release Big Movie Outside US First
Warner Bros. finally acknowledged reality: The U.S. is simply not ready for big films to return, and the country has lost its position as the most important movie market in the world. – The Atlantic
Composer And Writer Dmitri Smirnov Dead Of COVID At 71
While a student in Moscow in the late ’60s, he became passionately interested in William Blake, going on to translate his complete works into Russian and write the first Russian-language biography of Blake. The great English mystic became the dominant force in Smirnov’s music as well, with more than 50 of his compositions being based on or inspired by Blake. – The Guardian
How The Influential New-Play Conference PlayPenn Blew Up
PlayPenn doesn’t have new leadership yet, but its old leadership is gone. Earlier this week the organization’s board accepted the resignation of its founding artistic director, Paul Meshejian, and dismissed associate artistic director Michele Volansky, after a firestorm on social media, amplified in the Philadelphia press, brought to light longstanding practices many artists and former staff identified as racist and exclusionary. – American Theatre
Do Ballerinas Really Need To Be So Extremely Thin?
“Dancers are harming themselves trying to achieve the look. The continued preference for ultrathin bodies seems particularly out of step with current cultural conversations around body positivity and acceptance. What would it take for ballet body standards to change?” After all, writes Garnet Henderson, they’ve changed before. – Dance Magazine
A New Idea For Artist Resale Royalties Contracts
Joseph del Pesco, International Director of KADIST: “Sales of art in the US reached $29.9 billion in 2018 … Imagine if just 2 percent of that $29.9 billion did some good. That’s 600 million dollars reaching charitable organizations, about four times the yearly budget of the National Endowment for the Arts. Now imagine if that $600 million was controlled by non-profits run by artists …” – Artnet
Rhiannon Giddens Named Artistic Director Of Silkroad, Yo-Yo Ma’s Cross-Cultural Project
“Silkroad has to exist outside of Yo-Yo, but Yo-Yo is an inalterable part of Silkroad,” said the singer/banjo player/fiddler/opera composer. “Both of those things have to exist at the same time, and it has to take some thought about how to do that in a way that feels good to everyone involved.” Ma, for his part, said of Giddens, “She lives Silkroad’s values.” – The New York Times
Illegal Trade In Antiquities Is Not As Big As We Think It Is: Study
“A new report [by the RAND Corporation] claims that … the true size of the market in illicit antiquities may be ‘much smaller’ than is regularly reported. Perhaps more controversially, the report claims that ‘fuelling this disconnect between reported looting and assumed markets for these goods is the problem that bloggers, journalists and advocacy groups, although often producing high-quality research, are rewarded for sensational headlines and claims that bring attention to their issues and readers to their pages or sites’.” – The Art Newspaper
Stop Blind Auditions For Orchestras? No — Auditions Should Become Even More Blind
Jeremy Reynolds, responding to New York Times chief critic Anthony Tommasini’s argument that U.S. orchestras will never become more racially balanced without affirmative action, points out that “blind auditions aren’t really blind.” What’s more, as Pittsburgh Symphony bassist Jeffrey Grubbs (who is Black) tells Reynolds, the real problem is the makeup of the student body at music schools: “I don’t know that diversity hiring would change things much, as my impression is the highest caliber Black musicians out there are getting jobs. There just aren’t very many of them.” – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Indianapolis Symphony Cancels 2020-21 Season
A statement released jointly by the musicians and management said, “We recognize the challenges presented to the ISO by the pandemic and unforeseen economic. For those reasons, the 2020-21 indoor season will not go as planned.” Next summer’s outdoor concert series, Symphony on the Prairie, remains on the schedule. – Indianapolis Star