Category: AJBlogs

First You Talk
Typically, when I see a headline like this: Opera Memphis Kicks Off Effort to Diversify Audience, I cringe. Not because I don’t believe in diversifying our audiences. I clearly do. However, too often it is done … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2017-12-05

Playing with Wildfire: Getty Museum Closed Due to Smoke in the Region
I sometimes worry about housing some of the world’s greatest cultural treasures (including those from major loan shows) in a building that’s located on a fault line (prompting special precautions in how objects are installed), … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2017-12-05

 

Bug, Trapped
A hapless grasshopper found itself in the news not too long ago because it was trapped, a permanent visitor to a one-painting museum called Olive Trees. You may have wondered, as I did, … read more
AJBlog: Out There Published 2017-12-03

Bit by bit
“You’re not going to watch this, are you?” he asked in apparent amazement when I showed up for the first tech rehearsal. “Watching tech is like watching paint dry.” Maybe so, but I was in the house for every minute of both rehearsals, and found them … well, not exactly thrilling, but completely involving. I’ve been watching tech – all of it – ever since. … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2017-12-04

Monday Recommendation: Preminger’s Meditations
Noah Preminger, Meditations On Freedom (Dry Bridge Records)
Tenor saxophonist and composer Preminger timed the release of this album for the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration as president of the United States. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2017-12-04

 

Mundell Lowe, 1922-2017
Guitarist Mundell Lowe died today. He was 95. Lowe’s career began at 13 when he frequently went from his home in Laurel, Mississippi, to work at clubs in New Orleans’ French Quarter. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTidesPublished 2017-12-02

Quad Cinema Hosts Wyler Festival
WNYC’s Sara Fishko has produced a terrific audio piece about William Wyler and two of his best films — “Dodsworth” and “The Best Years of Our Lives” — both of which are playing among the … read more
AJBlog: Straight|UpPublished 2017-12-02

Amazon Cashes in on AIDS
Modified (but only slightly) from Amazon’s full-page ad in the NYTimes [12/1/2017] … read more
AJBlog: Straight|UpPublished 2017-12-02

Unsettled at the Met: Breuer Building, Southwest Wing, Director’s Search
With the benefit of hindsight, it seems obvious that the Metropolitan Museum, under Tom Campbell‘s directorship, got way ahead of itself in making ambitious plans to undertake a $600,000 makeover of its Southwest Wing for … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrlPublished 2017-12-01

Rolling Stone, Music Journalism, and the Baby Boom
A LOT of people I know have just finished — or are still deep into — the biography of Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner. Sticky Fingers is more than just the story of one … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrashPublished 2017-12-01

Recent Listening: Urban Fado
Mary Ann McSweeney, Urban Fado (McSweeney)
In Lisbon, New York, Montreal, Paris, and Tokyo – among other places around the world – musicians are melding jazz and Fado. Fado’s origins in Portugal extend to at least … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2017-11-30

 

Education and Engagement
Education and engagement are increasingly being paired in job titles and descriptions. There is some sense to that, but the differences – with respect to fundamental focus – are significant. … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2017-11-28

Machine-Made Art
For as long as there have been machines, I suppose, the question has been asked: Can Machines Make Art?  … It’s an interesting question, but there is a supplementary question that I find even more interesting:  How Much Do We Care About Machine-Made Art? … read more
AJBlog: Infinite Curves Published 2017-11-28

Dan’s Plans, Redrafted: Revelations in Metropolitan Museum’s FY17 Annual Report
A close look at the financials in the Met’s recently published Annual Report for fiscal 2017 (ended June 30) suggests that it’s premature to add “Turnaround King” to [CEO Kenneth] Weiss’s titles. The realization of the museum’s “Financial Transformation Plan” still has a long, bumpy way to go. … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2017-11-28

 

Women’s wages and employment at the top of the art world
I would venture this: the more a “top” position has multiple, inflexible time demands, the greater the gender differences will be. Does that mean we can look at the gender distribution of orchestral conductor or museum director positions and say “well, that’s just market forces”? No, we don’t have to do that. … read more
AJBlog: For What It’s Worth Published 2017-11-27

False Dichotomy: Boston Globe’s Deaccession-or-Die Editorial on the Berkshire Museum
With surprising disregard for the facts, the Boston Globe‘s editorial writers yesterday flatly (and wrongly) asserted that the Berkshire Museum needs to sell “40 of the museum’s most valuable works” in order to “remain viable.” … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2017-11-27

Monday Recommendation: Jones, Lewis & The Vanguard
Lisik and Allen, 50 Years At The Village Vanguard (SkyDeck)
Dave Lisik and Eric Allen tell the story of The Vanguard Orchestra and its predecessors. In a huge book illustrated with hundreds … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2017-11-27

 

The Literary Roots of Lou Reed
Back in the spring, when I pitched the Los Angeles Review of Books on a regular column on musicians and their literary interests, my editor immediately came up with the title All the Poets. … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrashPublished 2017-11-24

Almanac: Henry James on commercial theater
“Then the mixture was to be stirred to the tune of perpetual motion and served, under pain of being rejected with disgust, with the time-honoured bread-sauce of the happy ending.” Henry James, preface to Theatricals: … read more
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2017-11-24

Piano Sonata as Video Game: Anomalies in My Reception of Beethoven’s Music
A transcript of my spoken remarks at Boston University this week, as part of a symposium on piano sonatas by Beethoven. “I’d like to talk about what I would call anomalies in my own reception … read more
AJBlog: PianoMorphosisPublished 2017-11-23

The Literary Roots of Lou Reed Back in the spring, when I pitched the Los Angeles Review of Books on a regular column on musicians and their literary interests, my editor immediately came up with the title All the Poets. … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrash Published 2017-11-24

Piano Sonata as Video Game: Anomalies in My Reception of Beethoven’s Music A transcript of my spoken remarks at Boston University this week, as part of a symposium on piano sonatas by Beethoven. “I’d like to talk about what I would call anomalies in my own reception … read more
AJBlog: PianoMorphosis Published 2017-11-23

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. For more … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2017-11-23

Soft power and the arts (3/3) Soft power is the ability for a country to have international influence through means other than the threat of military action or aggressive economic policy (i.e. hard power). How do the arts and cultural … read more
AJBlog: For What it’s Worth Published 2017-11-21

Soft power and the arts (3/3)
The rituals behind cultural diplomacy leave me wondering about its effects. That cultural diplomacy is a soft-power approach to achieve hard goals is known by all participants in this game. We “see through” attempts by a nation to use carefully chosen works of art to convey a particular message … read more
AJBlog: For What It’s Worth Published 2017-11-21

 

Forgetting Hitchcock
Unlike most of my colleagues, I liked, and was even a little moved by the world première of Nico Muhly’s Marnie by the English National Opera (it goes to the NY Metropolitan next year). … read more
AJBlog: Plain English Published 2017-11-20

All there is
I’ve worked on enough shows by now to be familiar with the all-consuming experience of rehearsing, yet its disorienting nature still comes as a surprise each time it happens. … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2017-11-20