Category: people

“The leading Iranian artist Parviz Tanavoli, who was detained by officials earlier this month at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport, has been allowed to leave the country. … Tanavoli told us: ‘I am accused by the police. The accusations are that my art is based on ‘spreading the falsehood’ and ‘creating public anxiety’.'”

“Pearce devoted virtually his entire career to two arts organizations that were intimately connected – the Metropolitan Opera and the Metropolitan Opera Guild – and over a period of almost forty years his service to both institutions was distinguished, marked by intelligence, acumen and a rare degree of discretion.”

“To credit the multi-talented Marshall with any single accomplishment would be to diminish his others. He was everything – a director, writer, producer and actor, yes, but also a drummer and a journalist. … His career in the arts spanned six decades – seven if you count him drumming for a class of aspiring dancers at six years old – and he became arguably one of the most influential people in the entertainment business.”

“Dr. See was the author of 10 books, encompassing fiction and nonfiction, and was co-author of several more. For 27 years until her retirement in 2014, she was a regular book reviewer for The Washington Post. … ‘When I started to write I was relatively old, and lived in California. So I was the wrong sex, wrong age, wrong coast,’ she wrote in an essay. ‘Luckily I was too ignorant to know it.'”

St. Hildegard of Bingen was even cooler than you knew.

“He was ambitious, had the highest possible opinion of himself and aspired to the life of a noble, or at least to a noble life, a life dedicated to writing. … Dante’s self-image … dominated his writings and conditioned his every move.”

“Welcome to the strange world of modern-day fame, when it helps to be a nobody if you want to be a somebody! In some ways, we are returning to the rules of the medieval world, when major works of art and technology were created by anonymous innovators. But there’s a difference nowadays: Today’s mystery artists cultivate their aura of secrecy. They prefer obscurity over the perks of celebrity status.”

“My first reaction was, are they clowning me? I quickly realized it was sincere, and it was kind of amazing. Maybe [it caught on], because the posters made it seem possible. Instead of talking about it or demanding it, it was like, listen, it could be like this. For a minute, people were talking about it in a very serious way.”

“Mr. Smith founded the Gregg Smith Singers in 1955, when he was still a graduate student of music at the University of California, Los Angeles, and led it for more than 50 years, maintaining its reputation as one of the finest and most adventurous professional choruses in the United States.”

“Baloch, who was 26 years old, first rose to prominence after appearing in a Pakistani singing-competition show. Using Twitter and Facebook to post racy videos where she opined on controversial topics, she rapidly became one of the country’s most widely known social-media figures.”