As part of the transaction, former MGM Resorts International chief executive Jim Murren and Catalyst Capital managing director Gabriel de Alba were named as co-chairmen of the company’s board of directors. – CBC
Blog
Camilla Wicks, One Of World’s Leading Violinists In 1940s and ’50s, Dead At 92
She performed her first Mozart concert at age 7, debuted at Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic at 18, and played the Sibelius concerto for the composert himself, who called her performance the best he’d heard. Her fame faded after she retired to raise five children, yet, wrote Henry Fogel in 2015, “Her technique is as close to flawless as humans get, and her intelligence and interpretive breadth are clearly those of a major artist.” – The Washington Post
Why Do Rich Companies Sponsor Lit Prizes In Which They Get Criticized?
Why do the rich and powerful pay for this to happen? Do they not know that they are sponsoring people who are critical of the very structures and processes that enable their own wealth and power? Why help artists, writers, filmmakers gain new audiences? Why give them prizes? –Scroll (India)
‘Black Magic’ — Voguers Will Loom Over Times Square At Midnight
“Just before midnight every evening in December, some 70 digital billboards encircling the gaudy canyon of Times Square will be co-opted for three minutes by slow-motion images of Black voguers, performing dances of resistance, resilience and liberation. The video installation is the work of the multidisciplinary artist Rashaad Newsome, who has remixed footage from live performances of his 2019 piece Black Magic.” – The New York Times
Canadian Opera Company Hires A New Leader
Over the course of his 36-year career, Perryn Leech has worked with the English National Opera, the Edinburgh International Festival, and the Glyndebourne Festival, and most recently as Managing Director of Houston Grand Opera (HGO). He first joined the HGO in 2007 and was later appointed Managing Director in 2011. – Ludwig Van
An Operatic Countertenor Is Now A Top Contender On ‘The Voice’
John Holiday, 35 and from metro Houston, “has long sung jazz as well as opera, and crossover success was in his sights even before the pandemic hit. He’s sung at the Apollo Theater, opened for Jason Mraz and told The New Yorker that gospel music and Cardi B influence his classical singing. His dream: perform to a sold-out Metropolitan Opera house one week and a sold-out Madison Square Garden the next.” – Los Angeles Times
What Scientists Learned From Analyzing 24,000 Chess Matches
Over the last century or so, chess players, the study shows, have been getting better as well as younger. This parallels the so-called Flynn effect in intelligence, or a notable rise in raw cognitive scores. “Performance increased steadily over the course of the twentieth century,” the researchers write, “but the data also reveal a steepening of the performance increase during the 1990s.” – Nautilus
Here’s A Very Rare Thing: A Black Male Harpist Skilled In Both Classical And Jazz
A 26-year-old Bostonian, originally from Virginia, Charles Overton “wants to be both the Yo-Yo Ma and Herbie Hancock of the harp.” (Might one say he is pushing the Overton Window?) – Ozy
At A Crossroads, Second City Names New Creative Boss
Almost six months after co-owner Andrew Alexander left the company after accusations of embedded institutional racism there, Jon Carr has been named to succeed him as executive producer. A longtime playwright and performer in Atlanta, Carr currently heads Dad’s Garage Theater in that city. He will oversee all creative matters at Second City’s theaters in Chicago, Toronto, and Los Angeles — but, with the company up for sale, he may or may not be there long. – Chicago Tribune
As United Citizens Brigade Falters, Alums Found New Improv Theater
“Per the theater’s mission statement on its website, the Squirrel’s goal is to become ‘New York’s premier destination for sketch and improv comedy, …” The guiding principles of the theater will be ‘community, representation, transparency, and equality,’ and the website notes that equality will begin with the theater ‘financially compensating its artists'” — a years-long matter of controversy at UCB. – Vulture