Link Love Wednesday

The thought of writing an article for the day after the election seemed a bit overwhelming but it dawned on me that I haven’t posted any sort of formal link love style post in quite some time. Consequently, it is high time to rectify that oversight so here’s what has been catching my attention as of late.

At Inside The Arts…

• If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times, Joe Patti just can’t write a bad blog post and as of late, they’ve been especially engaging. I especially enjoyed How Much Would You Pay For A Selfie With Me?, Gasp! Orchestra Strike Post That Doesn’t Devolve To “Overpaid Bums”, Can’t Brag About Them And Not Invite Them To The Table, and What Arts and Cultural Concepts Should Every American Know?.
• Over at Neo Classical, Holly Mulcahy documented the process about how musicians go about preparing for a conductor-less concert event. The four part series dives into behind the scenes details you had no idea existed: No Conductor, No Problem: Navigating A Conductor-Less Concert, Part 1, No Conductor, No Problem Part 2: The Librarian Is Your Friend, No Conductor, No Problem Part 3: Advice From The Top, and No Conductor, No Problem Part 4: Seeking Haydn Amongst Friends.
• Doug Rosenthal recently started a brand new series of articles over at Who’s Your Audience called “Labor of Love” which he describes as a challenge he wanted to create for himself. “I’m a classical musician. I love what I do. And I’m a member of the American Federation of Musicians (the Musicians’ Union). I love what we stand for. But I also want to learn about other cultural institutions and I want to interact with other labor unions. Therefore…I will attend one cultural event and one labor event every month for one year. To genuinely get me “off the beaten path,” the cultural event must include more than classical music and the labor event must include more labor unions than the American Federation of Musicians alone. He posted the inaugural installment on Oct 19, 2016: Gyros and Hot Dogs.
• Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog never seems to stop even for a breather these days. His podcast series, Contrabass Conversations, is crazy popular and practically defines the extended world of double bass playing. And although it isn’t exactly one of his most recent podcasts, one of my favs is 171: Paul Ellison on musical athletes, period performance, and the comprehensive undergraduate experience

Out and About…

• Am I bummed that Thomas Cott decided to formally retire his weekly email newsletter, You’ve Cott Mail? You bet I am. But that doesn’t mean you’re out of luck for finding curated arts news off the beaten path. If you haven’t done so already, sign up for Ceci Dadisman’s ArtsMail, which she describes as “a new weekly email newsletter chock full of news and information for arts administrators. Sign up and you’ll get actionable items that you can put to use right away.” Here are some gems that would have otherwise completely flown under my radar: Eric Underwood: Why dance is for dudes (loved reading this just after experiencing one of Giordano Dance’s productions here in Chicago), Personalization Matters by Michael Barber, and Live screenings ‘won’t kill theatre’ by by David Hutchison.
  
• And speaking of Thomas Cott, I’m still all kinds of grateful that he’s maintaining his Twitter feed which pointed me toward Regional Theater Veterans Launch Nonprofit Touring Production Company by Gordon Cox.
• If you enjoy a bit of spice to your culture writing, make sure you’re reading what Howard Sherman publishes. Although he tends to be published in a variety of outlets, you can maintain a good aggregated list via his Twitter feed. Howard is an activist’s activist when it comes to the arts; one of his recent efforts took him to Harford County, Maryland to speak out against $100 per student, per show fee for high school drama students. Given that Harford County was my home for several years prior to moving to Chicago, I was all kinds of happy to see people like Howard taking an active interest in what happens there.
• And for those who think Norm Lebrecht is the king of mean, you’re completely missing the soft underbelly he exposes on a regular basis. Case in point, this blurb about tolerance and all that is good about classical music via a concert event for Syrian and Somali refugees as part of the St. Louis Symphony’s Music Without Boundaries program.