For the new Beethoven piece, 323 musicians and choir members will perform remotely – and during Proms, most performances will be from years past (though there’s a faint hope some final performances might be live). Proms organizer David Pickard: “This year it is not going to be the Proms as we know them, but the Proms as we need them.” – BBC
Blog
Who’s Making Money Off Of Cheap Language Instruction?
It’s not the language teachers, especially the English-language teachers from places like the Philippines, who are getting paid poverty wages. And what of apps? Uh … “Language ‘learners’ on Duolingo are actually just performing the free labor—or even paying for the privilege—of helping the company improve its proprietary algorithms.” – Boston Review
Playwright Paula Vogel’s Advice Right Now: Follow Your Joy
Vogel isn’t saying this lightly. She started a play reading series in the middle of a pandemic. “The reason that I started Bard at the Gate is because I have asthma and diabetes. I was actually in rehearsal in New York, and all of us got tremendously sick and we thought, Oh, no. And I came back home to Wellfleet. And then I thought, ‘Well, it’s possible that the virus has my number.’ … [But] I don’t want to die before I see the play that I quit my job over in 1978.” – Token Theatre Friends
Vanta-Fish — Turns Out Nature Made An Ultra-Black Pigment Before The Nanotech Guys Did
Eat your heart out, Anish Kapoor. At least sixteen species of deep-sea creatures “have evolved a different and devilishly clever way of going ultra-black with incredible efficiency: One species the researchers found absorbs 99.956 percent of the light that hits it, making it nearly as black as … Vantablack, the famous human-made material that absorbs almost all the light you shine at it.” – Wired
In Hollywood, Some LGB Representation Is Up, But What Happened To Trans Rep?
Truly embarrassing themselves again, major studios released 118 films in 2019 and, well, they all got low grades from GLAAD. “Lionsgate, Paramount Pictures, United Artists Releasing and Universal Pictures were marked as ‘insufficient’ by GLAAD, while Sony Pictures Entertainment and Walt Disney Studios received ‘poor’ grades and STX Films was slapped with a ‘failing’ grade as it had no LGBTQ representation in its 2019 film slate.” But they all failed at trans representation. – The Hollywood Reporter
Gabriella Tucci, Italian Soprano Who Sang 20 Roles At The Met, 90
Tucci began her career in Italy in the 1950s and went on to international acclaim, including in the 1960s at the Metropolitan Opera. “An unaffected and subtly compelling actress, she was best known for her interpretations of the spinto repertory, like her rendition of the title role of Verdi’s Aida, which demanded both lyric soprano lightness and the vocal heft to lift soaring phrases over an orchestra.” – The New York Times
This Exhibition Invited Visitors To Steal The Art. How Long Did It Take For The Place To Be Stripped Bare?
Roughly nine minutes. In famously low-crime Japan, no less. Organizer Tota Hasegawa, owner of the Same Gallery in Tokyo, had expected the “Stealable Art Exhibition” to run for ten days, but so many aspiring thieves showed up for the midnight start time last weekend that he had to open the doors half an hour early. (The cooperative Japanese crowd did obey the requests to take only one artwork per person and to steal quietly.) – Yahoo! (AFP)
Fire Breaks Out In France’s Nantes Cathedral, Destroying Famed 17th Century Organ
Inspectors suspect arson for the fire that “broke the main stained glass windows between the two towers of the 15th-century cathedral, and destroyed the organ.” – Yahoo News (AP)
Battle Over Hirshhorn Museum’s Plans To Redo Its Modernist Gardens
Although the museum calls Hiroshi Sugimoto’s design a “revitalization” of the sculpture garden, its critics feel it is much more than that. They are especially concerned with the proposed changes to the core of the garden, the portion with the reflecting pool. Under the current plan, the pool would be replaced with one more than double its size with a stage at its center. – The New York Times
Turmoil At SFMoMA As Chief Curator Resigns
Gary Garrels is the fifth senior official at SFMOMA to depart over the past few weeks. Also gone are Nan Keeton, deputy director of external affairs; Marisa Robisch, director of human resources; Cindi Hubbard, manager of recruitment; and Ann von Germeten, chief marketing and communications officer. But the departures are not enough to assuage an activist group that calls itself xSFMOMA. In an open letter published Wednesday, July 15, the group of unnamed former employees demanded that the board also remove Benezra for his own culpability. – San Francisco Chronicle