Coltrane is the archetypal creative obsessive intent on finding unheard approaches to the building blocks of music, from the arc of his melodies to the rhythmic drive of his solos to the harmonic framework for his songs. – Times Literary Supplement
Tag: 04.09.19
San Francisco’s Wealth Problem – Can The City Survive?
With Bay Area-based tech companies scheduled to hold initial public offerings this year, the city of instant millionaires is about to have thousands of even newer millionaires. And many residents of this city — secretly and not-so-secretly — fear that 2019 is the year San Francisco becomes a truly impossible place to live. – Washington Post
‘The Jungle’ — Dramatizing A Crucial Period In The Life Of The Notorious Calais Refugee Camp
The play, written by two young Englishmen (Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson) who went to live for several months in the camp and set up a makeshift-but-busy performing arts center there, shows what happened in the winter of 2016 after French authorities issued an order that the southern half of the camp — by that point, home to 3,500 people, several mosques and churches, restaurants, and a school — was to be evacuated and destroyed. – The New York Review of Books
Baritone Lucia Lucas Becomes First Transgender Woman To Sing Lead Opera Role In U.S.
Lucas, who is based in Germany and has her career largely in Europe, began rehearsals this week for the title role in Don Giovanni at Tulsa Opera. And this is not her first time playing Mozart’s antihero. – Tulsa World
Music Is Ephemeral: That Makes It Difficult To Write About. Also To Understand How A Conductor Does What S/he Does
Conductor Mark Wigglesworth wrote a book to try to explain the latter. Robert Philip wrote another that tries to make music comprehensible in words. These aren’t meager tasks. – Times Literary Supplement
Major Find: Catalogue To (Huge) Library Of Christopher Columbus’s Son
“The Libro de los Epítomes manuscript … contains more than 2,000 pages and summaries from the library of Hernando Colón, … who made it his life’s work to create the biggest library the world had ever known in the early part of the 16th century.” Only about a quarter of the actual volumes have survived, so the catalogue provides invaluable information on what was being published at the time. – The Guardian
Vienna’s State Ballet Rocked By Reports Of Abuse At Its School
“The ballet academy at Vienna’s renowned State Opera was hit Wednesday by allegations of serious physical and mental abuse against its students, as well as sexual assault. The weekly Falter newspaper published findings of a detailed investigation which it said exposed ’19th-century’ methods inflicted on students, illustrating the piece with a photo of the bloodied feet of a student after a day’s training.” – Yahoo! (AFP)
Amazon Prime India’s New Series Goes Where No Bollywood Saga Gone Before
“Centered on Karan (Arjun Mathur) and Tara (Sobhita Dhulipala), two friends who run a wedding-planning business, [Made in Heaven] takes on a wide array of issues that a burgeoning generation of South Asians is facing, including class, homophobia and sexual harassment. At the helm are three acclaimed Bollywood directors and screenwriters, who also happen to be women.” – The New York Times
Academia’s Itinerant Labor Problem: How Exploitation Of Adjuncts Betrays Students
In the nineteen-seventies, about a quarter of college faculty were on limited-term, adjunct contracts; the majority of professors were tenured or on the tenure-track. Today, it’s estimated that nearly three-quarters of college faculty are adjuncts. – The New Yorker
I Used To Have A Great Sense Of Direction. Then Came GPS… What Skills Is It Safe To Forget?
Instead of looking at what we’re learning, perhaps we should consider the obverse: what becomes safe to forget? As the internet grows ever more powerful and comprehensive, why bother to remember and retain information? If students can access the world’s knowledge on a smartphone, why should they be required to carry so much of it around in their heads? – Aeon