Category: AJBlogs

Changemaker conference
I’m flying today — so happy to say this! — to DePauw University, where I’ll take part in … [the] 21CMPosium. …  I’ve spoken many times about change in classical music, but this is the first time I’ve had an audience of changemakers. … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2016-09-08

Brubeck Trio: Two “Indianas” Explained
Drummer, Rifftides reader and close listener Tarik Townsend expands here on his analysis of two 1949 Dave Brubeck Trio takes of “Indiana.” The discussion grew out of … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-09-08

The Higher Criticism and The Good Food Guide
The Good Food Guide is a peculiarly British phenomenon, founded in 1951 by one Christian socialist classical scholar … and edited for many years by another.  More accurately, they … read more
AJBlog: Plain English Published 2016-09-08

Gard Foundation Symposium–Our Communities: Day 2
Yesterday I began my reporting from The Robert E. Gard Foundation’s Our Communities: A Symposium on the Arts at The Johnson Foundation at Wingspread’s conference center. Today was a full day presenting the history and … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2016-09-08

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David Lang’s new opera The Loser may yet win
Pulitzer-winning composer David Lang has written several operas so far, none of them in the least bit conventional, and all of them showing how much the ultra-minimalist Bang on a Can aesthetic can be fascinatingly at odds with an art form that’s traditionally grand. … read more
AJBlog: Condemned to Music Published 2016-09-07

The Four Parts of (Meeting) Speech
With a new academic year now begun, I’m noticing again how odd and awful meetings can be. People of strong intellect and good intent, when gathered over an agenda (or a lack thereof), … read more
AJBlog: The Artful Manager Published 2016-09-07

Gard Foundation Symposium–Our Communities: Day 1
Today marked the beginning of The Robert E. Gard Foundation’s gathering at the The Johnson Center at Wingspread’s conference center outside Milwaukee. Announced here earlier this year, Our Communities: A Symposium on the Arts is … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2016-09-07

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Bach’s Brandenburgs: Liberated by The Sebastians?
The world probably wouldn’t be appreciably different had Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos not been discovered sitting on some shelf, possibly unplayed and unexamined, for a century or so after they were finished in 1721. … But the Brandenburg Concertos are so singular in Bach’s output, [and] in the history of concertos, that their impact on audiences was inevitable. … read more
AJBlog: Condemned to Music Published 2016-09-06

Gard Foundation Symposium–Our Communities: Begins Today
Today marks the beginning of The Robert E. Gard Foundation’s gathering … Our Communities: A Symposium on the Arts is a reflection on the state of arts/community connections … Since this is a by-invitation-only event, I have been tasked with keeping the outside world apprised of at least some of the discussions that take place there. … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2016-09-06

Leonard Weinglass, Our ‘Modern Clarence Darrow’
Other defense attorneys may have been more famous – William Kunstler, for example – but radical leftists of a certain age remember the late Leonard Weinglass with special feeling. … read more
AJBlog: Straight|Up Published 2016-09-06

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Labor Day 2016
In the United States this is Labor Day, since 1894 a national holiday that celebrates working peoples’ contributions to the nation. …  From 1962 — when the average price of a gallon of regular gas was 31 cents — here is the unofficial Rifftides Labor Day song.  … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-09-05

In chains
At some point in my younger days, I got it in my head that a musical composition, like a chain, was only as strong as its weakest link.  … More recently, I considered whether a musical composition might only be as strong as its best ideas, weak links be damned. … read more
AJBlog: Infinite Curves Published 2016-09-05

This Week In Audience: Connecting The Dots As Louvre Visits Decline 20%
This Week: Tate goes for an artificial intelligence art project … UK has more amateur orchestras than you can shake a stick at … Does community storytelling take advantage of the storytellers? … Why the Louvre’s attendance is down 20% … When data drives your art experience the art changes. … read more
AJBlog: AJ Arts Audience Published 2016-09-04

This Week’s Notable AJ Stories: An Artist Erased, A Cautionary Tale
This Week: What exactly does cultural equity actually mean? … In our social media world everything is about images … A cautionary tale as an artist is erased from the internet … There’s a difference between culture and art … Why Italy fought to keep Venice off the endangered list. … read more
AJBlog: diacritical/Douglas McLennan Published 2016-09-04

Artists Erased From The Web And Our Growing Problem With Facts
Are we comfortable letting shareholder-driven companies – any private company – have absolute control over infrastructure that is increasingly essential for the functioning of civil society? Deciding who is visible and who is not? … read more
AJBlog: diacritical/Douglas McLennan Published 2016-09-04

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Artists Erased From The Web And Our Growing Problem With Facts Are we comfortable letting shareholder-driven companies – any private company – have absolute control over infrastructure that is increasingly essential for the functioning of civil society? Deciding who is visible and who is not? What … read more
AJBlog: diacritical/Douglas McLennan

This Week in Audience: Connecting the Dots As Louvre Visits Decline 20%
This Week: Tate goes for an artificial intelligence art project… UK has more amateur orchestras than you can shake a stick at… Does community storytelling take advantage of the storytellers?… Why the Louvre’s attendance is down 20%… When data drives your art experience the art changes.
AJAudience

Diversity in the Arts: Where are we now? The people at Createquity have put together a great piece on different ways of thinking about what has surely become the hot discussion topic in the art world: diversity. They reveal the depth and complexity … read more
AJBlog: For What it’s Worth

Revisiting Desmond’s Full “TWYLT” Solo Rifftides reader Frank Roellinger reports that a YouTube watcher who goes by the handle Swel1954 has identified a quote in Desmond’s celebrated solo on “The Way You Look Tonight” from Jazz At Oberlin.  … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides

So you want to see a show?
Here’s my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2016-09-01

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Guillermo Del Toro at LACMA
I must admit to being the kind of museum-goer instinctively suspicious of exhibits about popular culture. I say this as someone who loves pop culture and spends most of his life there. But these … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrash Published 2016-08-31

From Private Delectation to Public Display: The Prado’s Once Hidden Nudes Flaunted at the Clark
The seemingly robust attendance (figures not yet available) at the Clark Art Institute’s current summer extravaganza — Splendor, Myth and Vision: Nudes from the Prado (to Oct. 10) — runs counter to Robin Pogrebin’s assertion in the NY Times … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2016-08-31

Explosion of harps
So, yesterday I blogged about how complex Wagner’s orchestration is in Götterdämmerung. Far more complex than it is in earlier Ring operas (apart from the last part of Siegfried). Today, a quirky orchestral detail. So quirky. Weird! … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2016-08-31

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TV Dying, Video Streaming Surging – So This Is How People Are Getting Their News (Uh-Oh)
A flood of stories this week show how TV is dying and video is on the rise. You think changing audience behavior is tough on arts organizations? Try it when you’re a multi-billion-dollar conglomerate like NBCUniversal Comcast or Verizon. … read more
AJBlog: diacritical/Douglas McLennan Published 2016-08-30

The Revelation in Four “Women Modernists”
The Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach has, under director Hope Alswang, strived to increase the exposure to art by women. It is, for example, known for … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2016-08-30

Thomas Chapin on film, with Trombari in Normal IL
Glenn Wilson, a terrificbaritone saxophonist and flutistbased in Normal, IL, is also a major mensch. … read more
AJBlog: Jazz Beyond Jazz Published 2016-08-30

Tasty details
And so, about Wagner’s orchestration … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2016-08-30

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In The Church Of Big Data, Artistic Judgment Is Just A Data Point
Lately we’re seeing a steady stream of stories at ArtsJournal about attempts to algorithmatize creativity. But that’s merely the frontier of the data-driven gospel, the idea that algorithms and intelligent machines will more efficiently be able to create the things we want. The mainstream orthodoxy of Big Data, though, is … read more
AJBlog: diacritical/Douglas McLennan Published 2016-08-29

The “Scoop” that Wasn’t: Fisher Collection’s 75%-25% Rule at SFMOMA Exposed Six Years Ago
In my previous post about the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s deal to display the coveted Doris and Donald Fisher Collection, I took the San Francisco Chronicle‘s Charles Desmarais at his word and … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2016-08-29

Thrice more unto the breach
The Mosaic Theater Company’s production of Satchmo at the Waldorf, which began previews last Thursday, opens tonight in Washington, D.C. This is, unlikely as it may sound, Satchmo’s twelfth staging to date.… read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2016-08-29

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