America’s oldest orchestra had the development and promotion of American music as part of its founding mission. Yet, in its first 11 seasons, it played two American works, both composed by its own concertmaster. Then, in 1853, a British orchestra and a French conductor went on a months-long tour of the U.S., commissioning and performing American music the entire time (including William Henry Fry’s Santa Claus Symphony). Musicologist Doug Shadle recounts the ruckus that ensued. – The New York Times
Blog
What Comes Next? II
Economic recovery from coronavirus will be far slower for the bottom 90% than for the top 10%. This is a deeply perilous prospect for the nonprofit arts industry. In the minds of many, we are closely associated with the economic and social “elite.” – Doug Borwick
What Do Artists Need Now? Why Not Ask Them?
“I think that’s the problem with the model. The institutions do have to exist, but when s**t gets hard they have to care about their staff, not their gig workers, or their artists. I mean they might say that they do, but there’s no net for the artists I don’t think because the artists aren’t employed by anyone. The artists are self-employed.” – Dance Magazine
Why Do We Miss Cannes So Much?, Ask New York Times Movie Writers
A.O. Scott, in conversation with Manohla Dargis and Kyle Buchanan:
“For 11 or 12 days, the festival becomes a cinematic universe in its own right. When you’re inside it, the rest of the world seems unreal. From outside, it looks like a strange snow globe full of movie stars. But it matters because, behind all the frantic photo calls and yacht parties and swanny red carpet marches is an almost religious devotion to cinema, an ardor for the art that isn’t snobbish or cynical.” – The New York Times
Companies Have Figured Out It May Be Cheaper (And Easier) To Work From Home. So What Happens To Cities?
Companies are considering not just how to safely bring back employees, but whether all of them need to come back at all. They were forced by the crisis to figure out how to function productively with workers operating from home — and realized unexpectedly that it was not all bad. If that’s the case, they are now wondering whether it’s worth continuing to spend as much money on Manhattan’s exorbitant commercial rents. – The New York Times
How Jerry Saltz Acquired His (Very Strange, Very Strong) Appetites
A compelling sort-of mini-memoir, in which Jerry proceeds from describing his (barely developed) way of cooking and his (odd and specific) consumption of coffee to recounting his (nearly nonexistent) upbringing, his (inventively checkered) young adulthood and how he basically willed himself into a career as an art critic. – New York Magazine
Understand Your Procrastination In A Different Context
When a person fails to begin a project that they care about, it’s typically due to either a) anxiety about their attempts not being “good enough” or b) confusion about what the first steps of the task are. Not laziness. In fact, procrastination is more likely when the task is meaningful and the individual cares about doing it well. – Human Parts
Does It Make Sense For Amazon To Buy AMC?
“Everybody thinks about it one way. They think, Okay, Amazon is going to buy movies or produce movies. AT&T or Comcast is going to start skipping theater distribution and go straight to your TV set. It makes sense, right? But there are opportunities to go the other way. And that is, I think, if Amazon owned AMC, it might release the first four episodes of season three of Jack Ryan in the theater.” – New York Magazine
Should We Be Afraid Of AI?
“Many people were likely stunned to read recently the announcement by Microsoft that AI was proving to be better at reading X-rays than trained radiologists. Most newspaper readers don’t realize how much of their daily paper is now written by AI. That wasn’t supposed to happen; robots were supposed to supplant manual labor jobs, not professional brainwork. Yet here we are: AI is quickly gobbling up entire professions—and those jobs will never come back.” – Scientific American
Research: The Conditions Under Which Audiences Say They’ll Return To Theaters
What will it take to make people feel confident enough to return to going to shows? – American Theatre