“Worn by audience members during a performance, the glasses project dialogue directly onto the lens, allowing the wearer to follow the action without having to glance toward the sides of the stage, where caption screens are usually placed.” – American Theatre
Blog
Opera And Classical Young Artist Programs Are Big Business — For Everyone But The Young Artists
Zach Finkelstein: “Company X is a prestigious music apprenticeship festival for instrumentalists and singers. They take in about $15 million a year in revenue, own over $80 million dollars in assets, including real estate, investments, and cash on hand, and pay their CEO almost half a million dollars a year. Nearly two thousand young musicians paid $60 each last year to apply for a handful of spots, with no guarantee of being heard in person. netting the company an estimated $118,000 in application fees. And they pay their newly-hired apprentice performers absolutely nothing.” – The Middle-Class Artist
Could The Dirt-Poor Alabama Hamlet Famous For Its Quilts Become An Art Destination Like Marfa?
“The thinking goes: If Marfa, the pint-size Texas town located a three-hour’s drive from the nearest airport, can become a site for pilgrims seeking to commune with Donald Judd’s Minimalist art, why can’t Gee’s Bend become a magnet for art historians, craft enthusiasts, and American history buffs who want to know more about the source of the world’s most acclaimed quilts?” – artnet
How A Pair Of English Policemen Helped Jump-Start The Movement To Repatriate The Benin Bronzes
In 2004, Steve Dunstone and Timothy Awoyemi, on a Police Expedition Society goodwill trip, were on a boat on the Niger River being greeted by the people of a southern Nigerian town. As the event was ending and the boat was about to leave, one man from the crowd reached out and passed Dunstone a note. It said, “Please help return the Benin Bronzes.” – The New York Times
Knopf Names Sonny Mehta’s Successor As Publisher
Some three-and-a-half weeks after Mehta’s death, the publishing house Alfred A. Knopf has appointed Reagan Arthur, currently senior vice president and publisher at Little, Brown, to succeed him as president and editor in chief. While few people knew this before the announcement, Arthur was Mehta’s own choice for the job. – Los Angeles Times
NEA Releases Results Of Latest Survey Of Public Participation In The Arts
Among the key findings: 74% of American adults engage with the arts via electronic media, 54.3% attend arts events, and 53.7% create or perform art themselves. Three states, D.C. and metro Cleveland have particularly high rates of attendance at performances, while Vermont, Montana, and metro Dallas lead in art show attendance, and nearly 90% of adults in greater Philadelphia and Baltimore engage with the arts via electronic media. – National Endowment for the Arts
PBS News Anchor Jim Lehrer Dead At 85
“While best known for his anchor work [as co-founder of what is now The PBS NewsHour], which he shared for two decades with his colleague Robert MacNeil, Mr. Lehrer moderated a dozen presidential debates and was the author of more than a score of novels, which often drew on his reporting experiences. He also wrote four plays and three memoirs.” – The New York Times
Does Russia’s New Minister Of Culture Hate Culture?
Her blunt views on culture were summed up in a 2008 blog which complains “I simply can’t stand going to exhibitions, museums, opera”. – BBC
Smithsonian To Send Popular Obama Portraits On A National Tour
Kehinde Wiley’s official portrait of President Obama and Amy Sherald’s painting of the first lady, like the Obamas themselves, broke boundaries. L.A.-born, New York-based Wiley and New York-based Sherald were the first African American artists to be chosen by the National Portrait Gallery for such commissions. – Los Angeles Times
Klimt Thief: “We Have Given A Gift To The City”
Last Friday, when art historians confirmed its authenticity through X-rays to see if the original painting was there, Ermanno Mariani got the curious call, and the voice was oddly familiar. The man on the phone said he was the person Mariani had previously interviewed about the theft. Mariani also received a letter claiming, “We are the authors of the theft of Klimt’s Portrait of a Lady, and we have given a gift to the city by returning the canvas.” He turned the letter, written in large block writing, over to police. – The Daily Beast