Michael Brodeur: “The plan was to spend my first week … seeing concerts and shaking hands. (Just typing that makes me want to sanitize.) The goal was to go big,” with five performances in four days. “Then came the coronavirus, and the sudden lack of things for a critic to critique seemed the least of our problems.” – The Washington Post
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Hope! As Movie Houses Everywhere Else Close, China Begins Moving Toward Reopening Them
A very few cinemas in far-flung cities are back in business already (though few customers are coming just yet), and the major cities are making plans. The big problem: nothing exciting to show, since the epidemic scuttled the Chinese New Year release of the new blockbusters. The solution: studios will re-release recent hits. – The Hollywood Reporter
Chicago Lyric’s Orchestra Gives Up Part Of Salary So Freelancers For Cancelled ‘Ring’ Can Be Paid
“The orchestra musicians voted [unanimously] to take a ’10 percent cut of our weekly salary for the next seven weeks that had been canceled,’ said [violist Amy] Hess. ‘Then the dollar amount of everyone’s cut will be distributed to the extra and stage band of musicians, to help make up for the work they wouldn’t have been paid for.'” – Chicago Tribune
Hay Literature Festival Cancelled, With Future In Doubt
“Organisers will struggle to recoup the large infrastructure costs they have already committed to, as 70% of the festival’s income comes from ticket and book sales on site. In a statement on Thursday, the festival said the not-for-profit event was now in ‘immediate financial jeopardy’ and would need to raise funds in 10 days to ‘plot a sustainable route forward’.” – The Guardian
Metropolitan Opera Cancels Rest Of Season And Furloughs All Musicians And Stagehands
The company will pay its chorus members, orchestral musicians, and unionized backstage staff through the end of March but maintain their health insurance. Upper-level administration employees will take pay cuts ranging from 10 to 50 percent, and general manager Peter Gelb is forgoing his salary entirely. – The New York Times
Why It Matters So Much That Cannes Was Postponed And Not Called Off
“To take Cannes out of the equation for even one year would have massive reverberations throughout the world of international cinema. It is, simply put, the most important film event of the year, from which distributors flesh out their art-film slates, festivals take their programming cues and countries make their Oscar selections. Films that launch in Cannes are virtually assured a healthy run at smaller fests around the globe for a year or more.” – Variety
Cannes Film Festival Postponed But Not Cancelled
“The festival made the news public on Thursday, saying that ‘several options are [being] considered in order to preserve its running’ – its preferred one being a shift of the festival to the end of June.” – The Guardian
Rare Copy Of Newton’s “Principia Mathematica” Found In Corsica
Newton published his findings on the laws of motion in the 1687 book Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. Now, by sheer accident, a rare first-edition copy of this groundbreaking book was found in a library on the French island of Corsica. (Fun fact before we continue: Newton made his discovery while “socially distancing” himself during the Great Plague of London in 1665. He was a 20-something Trinity College student at the time.) – Hyperallergic
LA Times Listings Editor Watches Schedule Fall Apart
The listings I had spent the previous several days carefully crafting and curating had mostly crumbled before my eyes. – Los Angeles Times
SCAD Hong Kong Will Close Permanently This Spring
SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) Hong Kong, which has been in operation since 2010, has a $4 million financial deficit due to low enrollment. The tuition fee of $38,440 per year for full-time undergraduate students is considered unfeasible for most local students, while students from mainland China who would be able to shoulder the financial cost of the institution often prefer to go abroad for their educations. The school only recruited eighty-eight students, or 40 percent of its target, in 2010—last year only half of its target, 156 students. – ArtForum