“Against all the odds and expectations, it was the poets, like [Andrei] Voznesensky, who turned out to have had things right during the long and bitterly dark Cold War years, when many argued that accommodation to totalitarianism was the only realistic course.”
Tag: 06.05.10
Meet Andris Nelsons. The Birmingham Symphony’s Next Star
“Until three years ago, Andris Nelsons had never even set foot in Britain’s second city. Now he is chief conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and one of the sought-after talents in the musical world.”
Remembering Louise Bourgeois
“She held open house once a week for artists, where she would criticise their work with sometimes brutal frankness. Her sharpness, non-conformism, mysterious, uncomfortable work and great age made her the embodiment of the artist as rebel and wise-woman combined.”
How Globish Became The International Language
“The latest and greatest achievement of English is to have transcended the legacy of empire. Today its bounds are set so wide that it can truly be said to belong to the world. While its triumph continues, it is no longer coterminous with the triumph of the English-speaking peoples. Some commentators even suggest that it may now be happening at their expense.”
The Internet As A Tool Of Knowledge
“The case for digitally-driven stupidity assumes we’ll fail to integrate digital freedoms into society as well as we integrated literacy. This assumption in turn rests on three beliefs: that the recent past was a glorious and irreplaceable high-water mark of intellectual attainment; that the present is only characterized by the silly stuff and not by the noble experiments; and that this generation of young people will fail to invent cultural norms that do for the Internet’s abundance what the intellectuals of the 17th century did for print culture. There are likewise three reasons to think that the Internet will fuel the intellectual achievements of 21st-century society.”
Is Hollywood Anti-Business?
“Hollywood’s anti-capitalism is not accidental. It stems from three sources: the rage of directors and screenwriters against their own capitalist backers, the difficulty of using a visual medium to depict the invisible hand, and an ethical framework which Hollywood shares with most of our culture that regards self-interest as inherently immoral or, at best, amoral.”
Has British Columbia Government Bailed On The Arts?
The Liberal government’s message is: “We are no longer interested in funding the arts. Fend for yourself. If your product is any good, the market will support it.” Such an attitude shows, at best, a lack of understanding — and at worst, blind ignorance. It’s as if we’ve suddenly become a Third World country.
Killing Time Backstage
“While most actors have unremarkable routines for passing the time backstage — reading, listening to music, updating their Facebook pages — some performers this spring have found themselves, like [Jan] Maxwell, in need of ways to busy themselves to avoid performance-killing tedium because their characters appear so briefly.”
Leonard Slatkin Dishes On His Met Traviata Disaster
“Slatkin did not completely absolve himself from blame and admitted he made mistakes opening night. But what he called Gheorghiu’s “unprofessional behavior” — blocking his view of other singers, taking outrageous liberties that went beyond liberal notions of expressive phrasing, entering early and ignoring cut-offs — so unnerved him that he lost his cool in the second act.”
A Merce Cunningham Archive That Reflects The Spirit Of Its Subject
“Though the information there is meant to support full stagings of the works themselves, it will also serve to familiarize those interested in the choreographer with components of his individual works. The hands-on choreographic setting for contracted dances will be done only by foundation-approved Cunningham personnel, former dancers with the ability to teach Cunningham’s choreography.”