FEATURE
The Met is betting on a blockbuster lineup to make up for this canceled year. The future of opera may depend on it.
The Washington Post: Michael Andor Brodeur
“If we are going to survive, we have to take action,” says the opera’s general manager, Peter Gelb, on the phone from New York. “Part of the action is knowing when to shut down, knowing how to prepare for the future, and to have a purposeful approach.”
RESEARCH AND OPINION
Beethoven ‘cancelled’? Why people are debating whether the Fifth Symphony is elitist
Classical FM: Maddy Shaw Roberts
Two classical music podcasters have sparked an explosive debate: is Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony a “symbol of elitism and exclusion”?
Music Unframed and in the Great Outdoors: Keep Your Expectations Different
WQXR: David Patrick Stearns
A traditional concert hall is somewhat analogous to a picture frame. Taking away the frame changes the art that is being enshrined. The music precipitates an experience, rather than being the experience itself.
A Call for Creativity in the Final Weeks of the 2020 Census
HyperAllergic: Lane Harwell
Artists, designers, filmmakers, writers, and the organizations that serve them have a unique power to craft and circulate art and stories that illustrate what is at stake.
One Lost Weekend
NY Times: Michael Paulson et al
We zero in on one moment in New York City’s cultural calendar that’s been wiped clean — what it means, what it looks like, what it cost and what’s ahead.
Arts Commentary: “The Death of the Artist” — Culture Workers Unite!
The Arts Fuse: Debra Cash
If the cultural sector in the United States returns to the ways things were organized in February, 2020, with all the inequity and unsustainability that implies, we will have failed.
A Supreme Court Without RBG May Impact Hollywood’s Grip on Intellectual Property
Hollywood Reporter: Enriq Gardner
The Supreme Court loses its most pro-copyright voice just as the high court is set to hear its most important copyright case in decades.
Aaron Dworkin – With Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice’s Terri Lyne Carrington
Arts Engines
Aaron Dworkin sits down with Founder and Artistic Director of the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, Terri Lyne Carrington, to discuss the role of women in jazz.
Movies and Museums Are Coming Back. Should You Go?
NY Times: Courtney Rubin
Cultural attractions are reopening across the country. If you decide to see a film or take in an exhibit, know the risks and take precautions.
NATIONAL
[IU alert!] How A NYC Performance Artist Copes with No Live Shows
Business Insider
Featuring IU alumna, Marcie Richardson (OperaDiva!) Even as NYC enters its final phase of reopening from the coronavirus, performance artists are still stuck as home. Many performers like Marcy, an opera-singing aerialist, are living in a limbo of unemployment and uncertainty.
[IU alert!] Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra names Roger Kalia New Music Director
Evansville Phil
After an intensive two year search process, the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra Board of Directors has approved the Search Committee’s recommendation to hire Maestro Roger Kalia as EPO’s Music Director, effective June 1, 2020.
Ford Foundation fund to award an unprecedented $160 million to minority arts groups
The Washington Post: Geoff Edgers
The Ford Foundation this week is announcing an unprecedented $160 million-and-growing initiative called America’s Cultural Treasures, with substantial grants going to BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) organizations across the country.
The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Enters a New Era
Baltimore Magazine: Lydia Woolever
With a five-year contract and digital fall concert series, musicians and management look toward the future.
Afton Battle, Fort Worth Opera’s first Black female director, strives for more diversity
Fort Worth Star-Telegram: Jeremy Hallock
“It’s a huge responsibility and an honor during this crazy unprecedented time we are in,” said Battle, who is both the first female director in FWO’s history, as well as the first African American.
Atlanta Ballet’s drive-in Nutcracker: an alternative holiday tradition
Atlanta Journal: Bo Emerson
For five nights the ballet company will construct a pop-up drive-in movie theater on the Cobb Energy Centre’s surface parking lot, and will welcome patrons.
The Detroit Jazz Festival Finds a Way
Jazz Times: Lee Mergner
It took place over Labor Day weekend as usual, but that was the only thing usual about it.
Fort Worth’s Van Cliburn Competition postponed until 2022 due to pandemic
CurtureMap: Stephanie Allmon Merry
This is the first time the quadrennial competition — named for late pianist Van Cliburn — has been canceled since its inception in 1962.
Veteran Violinist Retires from Philadelphia Orchestra After 50 Years
Violin Channel
Booker Rowe first joined the orchestra in 1968 as a substitute musician, and at the time was the first Black musician to perform with the ensemble
INTERNATIONAL
[IU alert!] Alvin Ho Appointed as Assistant Conductor at BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Royal Ballet announces October comeback with more than 70 dancers
The Guardian: Mark Brown
One of the largest dance performances to happen anywhere in the world since the coronavirus pandemic began has been announced featuring the full company of the Royal Ballet – and while it will be socially distanced, there will be dance duets thanks to couples in bubbles.
Bolshoi’s return stumbles after performers test positive for Covid-19
The Guardian: Shaun Walker
It did not take long for the realities of the pandemic to intervene: the third and final performance of Don Carlo had to be cancelled at the last minute after singer Ildar Abdrazakov tested positive for Covid. Later, the soprano Anna Netrebko posted on Instagram that she had also tested positive.
Only 980 years to go! Parties and fears as 1,000-year-long piece of music turns 20
The Guardian: Claire Armitstead
Longplayer is a millennium-long composition by Jem Finer that harnesses the sound of Tibetan singing bowls. But, as it turns 20, the Pogues star is wondering how it can make it to the year 3000
Violinist Renaud Capucon Named UNESCO “Artist for Peace”
Violin Channel
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) Director General Audrey Azoulay announced French violinist Renaud Capucon as an official “Artist for Peace.”
ENTREPENEURSHIP
The anti-Spotify: How online music company Bandcamp became the toast of the COVID age
Los Angeles Times: Randall Roberts
A beloved business that upends the market while coming across like some combination of consummately curated record store, laudably progressive nonprofit group and supersize first-generation music blog.
The 10,000-person dance party streaming in your living room
The Verge: Zoe Shiffer
How Dance Church became the mega event of quarantine.
The Hidden Costs of Streaming Music
New Yorker: Alex Ross
What are the real costs of streaming? In 2016, streaming and downloading music generated around a hundred and ninety-four million kilograms of greenhouse-gas emissions—some forty million more than the emissions associated with all music formats in 2000.
OFF THE BEATEN TRAIL
How the Pandemic Transformed This Songbird’s Call
Wired: Matt Simon
When the San Francisco Bay Area locked down, urban noise levels plummeted. In response, the white-crowned sparrow changed its tune.
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