“Nézet-Séguin has conducted only two programs with the Philadelphians, in 2008 and 2009 – less contact than any other future leader has had since Leopold Stokowski was hired at age 30 in 1912, having never conducted them at all. Clearly, there are unknowns. Yet you get the feeling that this eager, deeply enthusiastic maestro will do anything he’s asked.”
Tag: 06.20.10
John Adams Talks Music (And Ezra Pound)
“Adams is deeply interested in the broader musical dimensions of culture, how pop music and classical music coexist and sometimes cross-fertilize, how composers need audience feedback, how musical generations succeed one another and how some artists will fight quixotic battles to their dying day, holding true to avant-garde orthodoxy no matter how isolating it is.”
The Interior Workings Of Eli Broad, Philanthropist
“For all of Broad’s consistent prominence on the public stage in recent years, the buildings he has helped develop make up a disparate, even contradictory group. They don’t reflect a single aesthetic vision or chart the growth of a few chosen architects over time. If the buildings have any common thread, in fact, it is disappointment.”
Is Melodrama On The Way Out?
“The clear and present evils in melodrama’s long and colorful history are a down-spiraling economy. Changing tastes. Home entertainment. 3-D movies. Audience gentrification.”
Harry Potter Theme Park Opens In Orlando
“Thousands queued for the opening of the Harry Potter theme park, where they were greeted by the films’ stars, including Daniel Radcliffe.”
Museum For African Art Takes Up Residence On Manhattan’s Museum Mile
“On Fifth Avenue between 109th and 110th Streets, the museum will occupy the lower floors of a 19-story condominium designed by Robert A. M. Stern and will extend New York’s Museum Mile uptown into Harlem. The limestone-colored building, with window mullions that lyrically evoke the weave of African baskets, will become a high-profile showplace for one of the only two major American museums devoted solely to African art.”
Study: Aesthetic Judgment Is Driven By Social Pressure
“Paul Bloom’s study, How Pleasure Works, which will be out this week, argues that there is no such thing as a pure aesthetic judgment. In developing his general theory about how humans decide what they like or dislike, he lines up evidence to show that what people believe about a work of art is crucial to the way they feel about it.”
A Scientific Approach To Planning Your Time Off
“Psychologists and economists have looked in some detail at vacations — what we want from them and what we actually get out of them. They have advice about what really matters, and it’s not necessarily what we would expect.”
The Interactive Reader – Something Lost, Something Gained?
“Yes, we are a little less focused, thanks to the electric stimulus of the screen. Yes, we are reading slightly fewer long-form narratives and arguments than we did 50 years ago, though the Kindle and the iPad may well change that. Those are costs, to be sure. But what of the other side of the ledger? We are reading more text, writing far more often, than we were in the heyday of television.”
The Internet As Civil Right
“As the Internet grows more and more important to modern life, some are now asking a different kind of question: Should broadband access be a civil right?”