Colm Toibin: Ireland’s Culture Is By Far Its Biggest Export

“I think it is possible to argue that both trade and diplomacy are culture for slow learners, that what happens with music and books, with painting and poetry, how they move and spread, how they do not recognise borders, how they find translators, is a blueprint for what happens later with goods and services and with treaties between governments.”

L.A. Phil to Premiere Lost Shostakovich Stage Work

“The surviving prologue of [Orango,] an unfinished, long-lost opera by Dmitri Shostakovich[,] will have its world premiere in December 2011 in a semi-staged production at Walt Disney Concert Hall, capping a multi-year process of musical sleuthing and improbable discoveries that’s nearly as eye-opening as the work’s bizarre subject matter.”

Zena Rommett, 90, Ballet Teacher Who Developed Floor-Barre Technique

“[Her] Floor-Barre begins with students stretched on the floor and proceeds with gentle exercises … without the pressure of gravity or the tendency toward rigidity that sometimes accompanies traditional standing-barre exercises.” Among her many notable students were Tommy Tune, Melissa Hayden, Patrick Swayze, Lar Lubovitch and Judith Jamison.