Category: AJBlogs

What Happens When Critical Opinion Separates From An Audience?
A poll of movie critics worldwide asking about the best movies of the 21st Century so far shows a big gap between the critics and the box office. Is it inevitable as an art form matures that critical taste leaves the audience behind?… read more
AJBlog: diacritical | Douglas McLennan’s blog

This Week in Audience: Are Middle Class Values Stifling The Arts?
This Week: Have orchestra pops concerts lost the pops thread?… A decade of experimenting with pay-as-you-will theatre in Charleston… NBC confirms a shift in how audiences want to watch the Olympics… Are middle class norms … read more
AJBlog: AJ Arts AudiencePublished 2016-08-28

Borne on a West Coast Breeze
The Pacific Northwest Ballet performs during Jacob’s Pillow’s last week of the summer. Pacfic Northwest Ballet in Benjamin Millepied’s 3 Movements. (L to R): Christian Poppe, Sarah Ricard Orza, Lesley Rausch, Seth Orza, and Matthew … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2016-08-28

The Future of Orchestras Part IV: Attention-Span
A colleague in Music History at a major American university reports that it has become difficult to teach sonata form because sonata forms transpire over 15 minutes and more.  This topic – shrinking attention-span — … read more
AJBlog: Unanswered Question Published 2016-08-27

 

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Collaborators
Artistic collaboration is finally getting the respect it deserves.  No longer looked down on as Art by Committee Meeting, interdisciplinary work is being celebrated for its ability to bring multiple voices into a single event, to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts. … read more
AJBlog: Infinite Curves Published 2016-08-25

Rudy Van Gelder, 1924-2016
Rudy Van Gelder, who recorded thousands of albums by musicians including some of the most important in jazz, died today at 91. As a young man, Van Gelder began recording in … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-08-25

Weekend Listening Tip: Two Herman Drummers & Friends
Jim Wilke alerts us that his Jazz Northwest broadcast this weekend features two drummers who at different times drove Woody Herman’s Herd.  Jeff Hamilton and Joe LaBarbera will co-lead an all-star big band that includes … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-08-26

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Is Naked Trump Bad Satire? (And Do We Care?)
In this week’s AJ highlights I included some of the stories we found about the naked Donald Trump statues that appeared in five American cities last week. One reader was unhappy: “Vile & disgusting. This … read more
AJBlog: diacritical/Douglas McLennan Published 2016-08-24

Boiling Pot In Chicago: “America After the Fall”
Think about American art in the 1930s. Does anything come to mind? Maybe the Regionalism of Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood. But there was so much more to the decade than that. … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2016-08-24

About that Italian €500
The Italian government has announced that it will give all eighteen-year olds, on their birthday, a €500 voucher to spend on books, film, music or theatre. … I think cultural vouchers are an interesting idea … [but] I can’t cheer this policy, … read more
AJBlog: For What It’s Worth Published 2016-08-23

Recent Listening: Steve Lugerner On Jackie McLean
Steven Lugerner, Jacknife: The Music Of Jackie McLean (Primary Records) After his studies at The New School in New York ended a couple of years ago, alto saxophonist Steven Lugerner returned home to … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-08-24

Another Do-It-Yourselfer
Thanks to an unencumbered and rather inspired summer, I am more than halfway through an evening-length collection of pieces for three microtonally retuned Disklaviers. I’m calling it Hyperchromatica, because  … read more
AJBlog: PostClassic Published 2016-08-24

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Why Aren’t We Driving Self-Driving Cars Yet? It’s All About The Culture
Driverless cars are here and they work and by all accounts they make driving safer than when humans are piloting. So why aren’t they already in showrooms? Not so fast. It’s not just about whether … read more
AJBlog: diacritical/Douglas McLennan Published 2016-08-23

Ten years after: The Fantasticks and me
From 2006: As for me, I’m the gray-headed drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and a resident of the Upper West Side of Manhattan, none of which I anticipated when I was sixteen. … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2016-08-23

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How Dance Will Help Teach Us About The Next Transformative Technology
Dance is the most physical art. Bodies moving, yes, but also because of how bodies relate to the space they’re in. Much of the energy in tech innovation right now is exploring the edges between physical and virtual worlds, … read more
AJBlog: diacritical/Douglas McLennan Published 2016-08-22

The Fisher Folly: SFMoMA’s Bad Deal
We’ve never known exactly the details of the deal that the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art made in 2009 with the Fisher family to get its collection (better described, actually, as access to the family’s collection … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2016-08-22

SFMOMA’s Seismic Fisher Fissure: “Integration with the Museum’s Collection”?
The San Francisco Chronicle‘s Charles Desmarais last weekend blasted the lid off a huge hole in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s description of the strictures governing its 100-year mega-loan of the Doris and Donald Fisher Collection. … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2016-08-22

Toots Thielemans 1922-2016
Toots Thielemans, the man who made the harmonica a well-known jazz instrument died today in Brussels, Belgium, his hometown. He was 94. Thielemans was recently hospitalized after a fall that resulted in a broken arm, … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-08-22

Monday Recommendation: Toots Thielemans
Toots Thielemans, Yesterday & Today (Out Of The Blue) The loss today of the harmonica virtuoso makes this survey of his career poignant and rewarding. Two CDs with thirty-eight tracks, most previously unreleased, follow Thielemans … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-08-22

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Who’s Telling Your Story (Storytellers Are Now Our Leaders)
He who tells the story sets the agenda. Looking for artistic leadership? Look for who is telling the most compelling stories… read more
AJBlog: diacritical | Douglas McLennan

This Week In Audience: Understanding Troll Culture
This Week: A look at online troll culture – were these awful people always among us?… Here’s who goes to choral concerts… A look inside the brain as it watches movies… Lin Manuel Miranda’s crusade … read more
AJBlog: AJ Arts AudiencePublished 2016-08-21

Almanac: P.G. Wodehouse on drama critics
“Nobody loves them, and rightly, for they are creatures of the night. Has anybody ever seen a dramatic critic in the daytime? I doubt it. They come out after dark, and we know how we … read more
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2016-08-19

Queering the canon – the new normal?
In John Tiffany’s absorbing production of The Glass Menagerie (seen in New York in 2013, now playing at the Edinburgh International Festival), isolation is a defining note. The Wingfield family’s St Louis apartment … read more
AJBlog: Performance MonkeyPublished 2016-08-19

Ystad Followup: Kathrine Windfeld
The Rifftides wrapup report on the Ystad Sweden Jazz Festival included a brief, enthusiastic comment about a performance by the Kathrine Windfeld Big Band of her piece “Aircraft.” This young Danish composer, arranger and pianist … read more
AJBlog: RiffTidesPublished 2016-08-18

 

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Ystad Followup: Kathrine Windfeld
The Rifftides wrapup report on the Ystad Sweden Jazz Festival included a brief, enthusiastic comment about a performance by the Kathrine Windfeld Big Band of her piece “Aircraft.” This young Danish composer, arranger and pianist … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-08-18

MCA-Chicago’s Terrace concerts, acing outdoor presentation
Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art has aced outdoor music presentations with its Tuesdays on the Terrace series, most recently featuring the string trio Hear In Now performing strong yet sensitive chamber jazz. … read more
AJBlog: Jazz Beyond Jazz Published 2016-08-18

Twerking the Berkshires: Storify & Video from My Workation
If you’ve been following my @CultureGrrl Twitter feed, you know that I made the rounds of Berkshire museums this week. It was meant to be a mini-vacation. But then I kept seeing things that … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2016-08-18

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Bobby Hutcherson: 1941-2016
Bobby Hutcherson, whose vibraphone playing developed deep and complex harmonies, died on Monday at home in Montara, California. He was 75. When Hutcherson came to prominence in the early 1960s, he was in the forefront … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-08-17

From England Via Florida With Love
The Sarasota Ballet presents an all-Ashton program at the Joyce Theater. … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2016-08-17

Groundhog Day, The (Buddhist) Musical
Intelligence is not exactly the first quality you look for in a musical. … But when Matilda the Musical grabbed our attention at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2010, we had to acknowledge that Tim Minchin had ploughed new ground. … In converting the 1993 film Groundhog Day into a musical for the Old Vic, Minchin has gone at least one better. … read more
AJBlog: Plain English Published 2016-08-17

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Bots and ticket prices and supply and demand
I can see Mr. Miranda wanting something done about bots – he wants ticket prices sold at a lower rate than obtains in the secondary market. But. … read more
AJBlog: For What It’s Worth Published 2016-08-16

A Master, A Mysterious Girl and An Unsolved Question
When I traveled to Berlin earlier this summer, I spent about four and half hours at the Gemaldegalerie (not enough time) – a full hour of which was spent looking at Portrait of a Young Girl (1470) by Petrus Christus. … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2016-08-16

Chrome Yellow: the Colour of the 2016 Edinburgh Festival
Last year’s was the first Edinburgh Festival I’ve missed for twenty-something years, and I was very pleased to return this year, if only briefly, to attend half a dozen performances at the International Festival … read more
AJBlog: Plain English Published 2016-08-16

Fifth Anniversary Highlights: Considering Whiteness
One of the most pressing issues facing the future of the nonprofit arts industry is the role of race and culture in our work. … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2016-08-16

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When All The Culture Around Us Starts To Look The Same
One of the biggest comforts of fast food is its familiarity. Generic from location to location, you know not only what the food will be and how it will taste, but that the ritual of the experience will be familiar too. … read more
AJBlog: diacritical/Douglas McLennan Published 2016-08-15

Monday Recommendation: Bill Charlap Trio
Bill Charlap Trio: Notes From New York (Impulse!) … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-08-15

Second and Fourth
Young composers are frequently pointed to late Beethoven as an example of the highest achievement of their art, and late Beethoven indeed rewards repeated study.  But there are lessons in late Beethoven that have little bearing … read more
AJBlog: Infinite Curves Published 2016-08-15

Gospel (not my usual bag) keyboards revelations
I’ll never be an avid fan, much less an aficionado, of gospel music — but Lift Me Up, Chicago Gospel Keyboard Masters, new from The Sirens, a local independent label, is clearly full of joy and inspiration. … read more
AJBlog: Jazz Beyond Jazz Published 2016-08-15

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