“One of a handful of gifted African-American conductors who broke through the glass ceiling in American symphonic music a generation ago, Freeman, 75, has made his orchestra a shining emblem of diversity and inclusion in the field. The concert celebrated his achievements now that he is stepping down from the orchestra he made one of the city’s best since launching it 24 years ago.”
Tag: 05.25.11
Stephen De Staebler, Sculptor of Broken Human Forms, Dead at 78
“In the late 1970s he began coaxing distressed, disjointed humanoid forms from large, vertical clay columns. Colored with powdered oxides and fired in a kiln, they presented potent images of broken, struggling humanity.”
Yasmina Reza Has Nothing To Say For Herself
The playwright of Art and God of Carnage finds television interviews “degrading. They never give you time to talk. I hesitate. I reflect. I contradict myself. Whenever I’ve done it, I was very, very bad. A catastrophe. … After I write, I have nothing to say. The commentary afterwards is superfluous. I write. And that’s enough.”
Does Art Heal? Melamid Opens A Clinic To Find Out
Conceptual artist and prankster Alexander Melamid (late of Komar and …) has opened “the Art Healing Ministry, a storefront clinic at 98 Thompson Street in SoHo, where people can come in by appointment and be treated, by means of exposure to fine art, for a variety of physical and psychological ailments.”