Category: people

“Starting in 1967, Davidson’s artistic vision, professional connections and business savvy were indispensable in transforming L.A. from a passive backwater where theatergoers largely consumed the Broadway touring shows to a wellspring for new works that won Tony Awards and Pulitzer Prizes.”

“The Women of Brewster Place won both the American Book Award and the National Book Award for first novel in 1983 … It gained further attention when Oprah Winfrey adapted it for ABC in 1989 as a two-part television movie, in which Ms. Winfrey starred with Robin Givens, Mary Alice and Cicely Tyson.”

“He loved orchestras, couldn’t get enough of their gossip and intrigues while always respecting the players’ craft and commitment and never indulging in malice. Those who fell out with him – Christopher Hogwood, for instance – found themselves embraced in reconciliation. So many musicians, down in the dumps, were picked up and set on their feet again by the ever-patient Neville.”

Mr. Marriner and his group were part of a huge revival of scholarly and popular interest in music of the 18th and early 19th centuries that began in the 1960s and has continued to this day. Washington Post arts critic Philip Kennicott once described the original appeal of the St. Martin’s performances and its interpretation of classics. “The Academy played them like chamber music,” he wrote in 2001, “with reduced forces and an emphasis on clarity; it also played them fast, which produced a broad architectural overview. This was revelatory in an age when conductors often got bogged down milking each phrase for its maximum romantic yield.”

“She saw what we were about to enter into. She had an extraordinary understanding of the cycles of social movements. What does it mean to be fully engaged in the world? Are you going to stand on the sidelines and critique it? Are you going to abstract it and be of no use in your abstractions, or are you going to be engaged and be part of the solution?”

“He formed the Academy with the aim of forming a top-class chamber ensemble from London’s finest players. Ironically, it was conceived as a conductor-free refuge for string-players but Marriner became, as he put it, ‘a turncoat’ – a conductor who on stage, as often as not, held a violin in one hand and a baton in the other.”

“Working in a small apartment-studio on the Left Bank, Ms. Jaffe refined and extended her inquiries into the drama of form and color — always at a distance, literally and figuratively, from the currents of American art.”

Deborah de Robertis: “Traditionally the body of the model is objectified to serve the message of the artist. My work suggests the opposite – the viewer is subjugated by the gaze of the model. … When I inhabit the role of the models – whether it’s Olympia or Barbie – it’s not about reproducing them but reconceiving them. When I invite myself into an exhibition, this exhibition becomes mine.”

At several points during the symphony, the code spells out her name over and over again; the variations are intended to make up “a kind of physical portrait of her,” Rouse says. “It’s a way of setting myself kind of an artificial challenge and then seeing if I can fulfill it successfully, if I can make music out of it,” he says.