Paul Taylor, R.I.P.

I wrote an appreciation of Paul Taylor for the online edition of today’s Wall Street Journal. Here’s an excerpt. * * * Paul Taylor, who died on Wednesday at the age of 88, was…

Article source here:Arts Journal

I Hate Burritos

So the headline isn’t mine, it came as a demand from my longtime eating partner Shelley, who heard me complain yet again about one of her beloveds — this particular paragon presenting as fat, limp,

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Reading With Aimee Mann

LAST week I took a wild guess and approached singer/songwriter Aimee Mann for my musicians-on-writing column, All the Poets. As a longtime fan I had a vague sense that she was literary.

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How The Online Global Gig Economy Threatens Us All

While freelance websites may have raised wages and broadened the number of potential employers for some people, they’ve forced every new worker who signs up into entering a global marketplace with endless competition, low wages, and little stability. Decades ago, the only companies that outsourced work overseas were multinational corporations with the resources to set up manufacturing shops elsewhere. Now, independent businesses and individuals are using the power of the internet to find the cheapest services in the world too, and it’s not just manufacturing workers who are seeing the downsides to globalization. All over the country, people like graphic designers and voice-over artists and writers and marketers have to keep lowering their rates to compete.

Article source here:Arts Journal

Why Victorian Thinker John Ruskin’s Ideas Have Fresh Resonance Today

“People get hung up on how eccentric some of his ideas were, but the core of his claims remains relevant and important. That is to say: our aesthetic experience, our experience of beauty in ordinary life, must be central to thinking about any good life and society. It’s not just decoration or luxury for the few. If you are taught how to see the world properly through an understanding of aesthetics, then you’ll see society properly.”

Article source here:Arts Journal

Professor – Department of Music

The Department of Music in the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music is pleased to invite applications for a senior-level, tenured, professorial position as inaugural holder of the Leo M. and Elaine Krown Klein Endowed Chair in Performance Studies.

UCLA Department of Music
Professor
Leo M. and Elaine Krown Klein Endowed Chair
in Performance Studies

Position Description

The Department of Music in the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music is pleased to invite applications for a senior-level, tenured, professorial position as inaugural holder of the Leo M. and Elaine Krown Klein Endowed Chair in Performance Studies.

In 2014, longtime UCLA arts philanthropist Elaine Krown Klein made a $2 million gift to establish this chair in music performance studies in the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music’s Department of Music to honor her late husband, Leo M. Klein.

This permanent endowed chair — the first in the history of the Department of Music — will support a distinguished, senior-level professor with a demonstrated record of excellence as a scholar, musician, and teacher. The chair holder’s primary role will be to lead and teach in a distinctive MM/DMA graduate program centered on the performance of Western art music and built around a suite of core courses in bibliography, notation and performance, analysis, and historical performance practices.

We seek a scholar/performer for this position for two reasons: because we believe that the advanced training of performers greatly benefits from mentors who exemplify excellence in both fields; and because we aim to graduate students from our program who not only understand the value of both approaches, but who can bring both skill sets to their future careers.

In addition to supporting the chairholder’s individual research, the Klein Chair is intended to support departmental and School of Music-wide* initiatives integrating performance and scholarship, such as festivals, recordings, theme-based programming, conferences, touring and multimedia collaborations.

*The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music consists of three departments: Ethnomusicology, Music and Musicology. Its founding principles strongly encourage interdepartmental student and faculty collaboration.

The successful candidate should possess a broad skill set encompassing as many of the following as possible:

• an active publication record in the area of music performance studies;documented skills as a
• professional-level performer, such as recordings and/or professionally reviewed public performances;
• a distinguished record of teaching at the graduate level
• experience in directing DMA dissertations and leading graduate seminars for performers;
• the ability to coach soloists and ensembles;
• a dynamic and collaborative approach to curriculum development;
• a commitment to mentoring graduate students in both academic and career matters;
• interest in helping to forge a collective vision for music performance at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music.

The successful candidate must also demonstrated a strong commitment to furthering the values of diversity in our university community through exemplary teaching, research and service.

Salary and rank commensurate with qualifications and professional experience. Doctorate or equivalent professional experience preferred; master’s degree required. Anticipated start date is July 1, 2019.

APPLICATION:
Applications must be submitted to the UC Recruit website online at: http://apptrkr.com/1285443

Candidates should submit:

• a comprehensive curriculum vitae
• a letter of interest with special attention to the role of music performance studies in the training of today’s professional musicians and educators
• a representative selection of publications in the area of performance studies (in PDF format)
• links to live and/or recorded performances
• a statement of teaching philosophy
• EDI statement describing the applicant’s past, present, and future (planned) contributions to equity, diversity, and inclusion across all areas of professional achievement.
• names and contact information of five to six professional references. Please do not upload reference letters; the search committee will contact references directly at an appropriate time in the process.

Application deadline: October 15, 2018

The University of California is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action
Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, age or protected veteran status. For the complete University of California nondiscrimination and affirmative action policy, see: UC Nondiscrimination & Affirmative Action Policy.

APPLICATION:
Applications must be submitted to the UC Recruit website online at: http://apptrkr.com/1285443

Article source here:Arts Journal

Some Fascinating Conjecture About National Portrait Gallery Attendance Figures

The gallery’s exhibition figures for last year and the first part of 2018—which are not in dispute, because they are ticketed and thus use a different system—will no doubt give the gallery pause for thought, because its contemporary exhibitions have been poorly attended.

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Two Mexican Artists Created Acclaimed Murals At LA’s Central Library. Then They Were Deported

For months, the Central Library has not publicly addressed the artists’ deportations or disclosed their case to patrons or press who have covered the “Visualizing Language” exhibit at the Central Library.

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Independent Music Festivals Say Live Nation’s Dominance Of Music Industry Is Stifling Competition

The US company or its subsidiaries control some of the country’s biggest outdoor live music events including Latitude, Isle of Wight festival, Reading and Leeds, Parklife and Lovebox. The AIF said Live Nation had a 26% share of the market for events with a capacity of more than 5,000 people, compared to its nearest competitor, Global, with 8%.

Article source here:Arts Journal

How Blue Can It Get? Simon Schama Visits The Pigment Archive Of Record

“Rows of pigments in tubes, jars, and bowls are visible through the doors of floor-to-ceiling cabinets. … There are the products of nineteenth-century chemical innovation — viridian green, cadmium orange, and the chrome yellow with which van Gogh was infatuated but which, over time, has begun to darken his sunflowers. But at the heart of the Forbes Collection are the natural pigments that were the staples of painters’ inventories before chemically synthesized paints replaced the impossibly esoteric, the dangerously toxic, the prohibitively expensive, and the perilously fugitive.”

Article source here:Arts Journal

Highly Regarded LA Central Library Lit Program Directors Out In Wake Of Mural Artists’ Deportation Controversy

The Los Angeles literary landscape shifted significantly this week with the departure of Louise Steinman from ALOUD, the reading series based at the downtown Central Library that she founded and ran for 25 years. A representative of the Library Foundation confirmed the departure of Steinman and ALOUD associate director Maureen Moore, who was the driving force behind the rotunda exhibit “Visualizing Language” by Oaxacan artists that gained international attention.

Article source here:Arts Journal