“Old houses, inns, farmhouses, monasteries and ancient castles are all up for grabs – and you won’t have to pay a penny.” And yes, there’s a catch: “Those who take up the offer will have to commit to restoring and transforming the sites into tourist facilities, such as hotels, restaurants, or spas.”
Tag: 05.15.17
A Google Artificial Intelligence Team Is Coming Up With Weird And Wonderful New Musical Instrument Combinations
“Jesse Engel is playing an instrument that’s somewhere between a clavichord and a Hammond organ – 18th-century classical crossed with 20th-century rhythm and blues. Then he drags a marker across his laptop screen. Suddenly, the instrument is somewhere else between a clavichord and a Hammond. ..Then he drags the marker back and forth as quickly as he can, careening though all the sounds between these two very different instruments.” Cade Metz checks out this new – what is it, exactly? – called NSynth.
The Great Brawl Of American Classical Music
“It was composer pitted against composer: uptown vs. downtown, tonal vs. atonal, left brain vs right brain, and these musicians were NOT pulling any punches. Composers were antagonizing each other, questioning each other’s validity, and bad-mouthing one another; it was like the second half of the 20th century was when Western Music went through middle school, and it was brutal! … On this episode of Meet the Composer, we unravel one of the most contentious periods in classical music’s history.” (podcast)
The 17th-Century Tapestries That Survived The St. John The Divine Fire Are Back After 16 Years
“After 16 years of conservation, the 1644-56 Life of Christ tapestries by Giovanni Francesco Romanelli that crown the art collection of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine [in New York] have returned to view. Unlike their previous positions high above parishioners’ heads, they’re temporarily installed in the Chapel of St. James, wrapping around the room at eye-level, as they would have been in the 17th century.”
How A Novelist And His Editor Work With, And Against, Each Other
A good editor’s work is generally invisible to the reader, as most good editors think it ought to be. Here Colin Dickey writes about a lengthy back and forth between a writer and the editor who (heavily) edited his first novel (including cutting it by a third) – this 15 years later, when the novelist published his original 900-page version himself.
An Oral History Of Saturday Night Live’s Biggest Season In Decades
“Everyone from Kate McKinnon to Chris Rock gives THR backstage access to a historic season as they reveal how Melissa McCarthy became Sean Spicer (with help from Kristen Stewart), the joke Aziz Ansari had to cut, and how D.C. chaos is fueling the highest ratings in decades: ‘You almost feel like a war profiteer.'”
The ‘Hamilton’ Of The Art Museum World: Yayoi Kusama Show Smashes Attendance Records At Hirshhorn
“Hirshhorn officials said about 475,000 visitors came to the [D.C.] museum and sculpture garden during the exhibition’s 11-week run. The crowds were double the normal attendance for that time of year … Still, two-thirds of those visitors were shut out of the show that they probably had come to see” – and those who got in had to wait in very long lines.
Brooklyn’s Hottest Street Dance Style Takes To The Stage And Takes On Social Issues
FLEXN, created by opera and theatre director Peter Sellars and flex pioneer Reggie “Regg Roc” Gray, has grown and changed a lot in the two years since its premiere. Courtney Escoyne talks with Regg Roc about flexing as a dance form and how social justice messages were integrated into the piece.
Chuck Davis, 80, Godfather Of African Dance In America
Founder and longtime director of the DanceAfrica festival in Brooklyn and the African American Dance Ensemble in Durham, NC, Davis “was known both for his re-creations of traditional dances from throughout the African world and for his contemporary choreographed pieces that fused African traditions with modern dance.”
Nicholas Hytner Writes About How To Run The National Theatre
By the time he left, Sir Nicholas had overseen the staging of 100 plays and established many of the features that people now take for granted, among them cheap tickets and live-cinema relays. He had also helped to produce some of modern theatre’s triumphs: “War Horse”, “One Man, Two Guvnors”, “The History Boys”, “His Dark Materials” and “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time”. Annual turnover in 2015 had climbed to £117m, of which just 15% came from the public purse.