“If board members can be forced out because of what they do for a living, what does that mean for cultural institutions that depend on their generosity to survive? … Anyone who scans the financial records of major American museums, or talks to their leaders and donors, can gauge just how much is at stake.” A team of Times reporters looks at the boards of the ten most visited museums in the U.S. – The New York Times
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Royal Shakespeare Company Gives Up BP Sponsorship
“The RSC announced that after months of deliberations and a vociferous campaign from artists, the public and environmentalists, it had decided to curtail its eight-year relationship. The move will increase pressure on other cultural institutions such as the Royal Opera House, British Museum and National Portrait Gallery, which have all come under pressure over their tie-ins with fossil fuel companies.” – The Guardian
Composer Giya Kancheli Dead At 84
“Kancheli’s work became known in the West as early as the 1970s — his Fourth Symphony, “In Memoria di Michelangelo,” was performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1978 — but it was in the 1990s in particular that important international champions of his music emerged, including the ECM record label as well as conductors Dennis Russell Davies and Kurt Masur, violinist Gidon Kremer, violists Kim Kashkashian and Yuri Bashmet and Kronos Quartet, among others.” – NPR
Nation Within Nation? America’s Problematic Issues With Indigenous Rights
Andrew Jackson’s and Trump’s assertions of US power over Indigenous peoples call attention to their singular political status as nations within a nation, and they speak to the continuing Indigenous struggle for sovereignty. – Aeon
New Trend On Instagram: Getting Real (Yes We Hear Your Skepticism)
Celebrities have always used their social-media accounts as confessional booths, but at some point in the past year Instagram stars began interrupting their otherwise aspirational feeds with a very specific type of revelation—posts that could be described as the “getting real” moments. – The New Yorker
Why We Need To Learn How To Do Nothing Well
Paying attention is not easy to do. It demands “a state of openness that assumes there is something new to be seen”, and the discipline to “resist our tendency to declare our observations finished.” – The Guardian
EU Report: Europe Is At A Social Turning Point – Arts Need To Play Role
The report describes the EU as being at a “turning point” due to societal and political challenges such as social cohesion, rising extremism and populism, global competition and “environmental emergency”. The culture and creative sectors, it says, have an important role to play in addressing these issues and can act as a positive, unifying force. – Arts Professional
Placido Domingo Resigns From LA Opera
“Recent accusations that have been made against me in the press have created an atmosphere in which my ability to serve this company that I so love has been compromised,” he wrote in a statement provided to The Times. “While I will continue to work to clear my name, I have decided that it is in the best interests of L.A. Opera for me to resign as its general director and withdraw from my future scheduled performances at this time.” – Los Angeles Times
Penguin Random House Defends Author Against Plagiarism Claims In Dr. Zhivago Book
Published in September, Lara Prescott’s The Secrets We Kept tells of how the CIA planned to use Doctor Zhivago as a propaganda tool during the cold war. But Anna Pasternak revealed in the Sunday Times that she had sent a legal letter to Prescott, claiming that the novel features “an astonishing number of substantial elements” copied from Pasternak’s 2016 biography Lara, which is about Olga Ivinskaya, Pasternak’s lover, muse and inspiration for his character Lara. – The Guardian
David Henry Hwang And Jeanine Tesori Turn ‘The King And I’ On Its Head
“In [Soft Power], a stand-in for Hwang named DHH is hired by a Chinese producer to try to stage a theatrical production in Shanghai. Then, after a stabbing that mirrors Hwang’s own, he falls into a coma and imagines a full-blown future production of a Chinese musical about an intrepid Chinese producer who meets Hillary Clinton and teaches lessons from the communist perspective about screwed-up American democracy. There’s also, of course, a ‘Getting to Know You’-style lesson scene, but about learning to distinguish tones in Mandarin.” – Vulture