Black People

Subterms

    More stories

    • 113 Shares169 Views

      in Music

      Classical Music Looks Ahead to a Fall in Flux

      by

      How will performances feel in the midst of pandemic regulations? Will institutions respond in actions, not just words, to calls for racial equity?Normally, when I look ahead to a new season, I have a pretty good idea of what the performances will be like.But it goes without saying that this is not a normal time. So even with usually sure bets — a new piece by a composer who has excited me in the past; recitals by performers I cherish; great casts in operas old and recent — it’s hard to know what the performances this fall will feel like. The very experience of gathering in concert halls is in flux with the lingering challenges of the pandemic.It looks as if vaccine mandates for audience members will be routine; I’m with those who see this move as the only way to make performances feel safe. But will masks be required or optional? Will there be full capacity, or some spacing in the audience? Will children be allowed, even if they’re still unvaccinated?And even with precautions, will audiences — especially ones that tend to be older, like those for many orchestras and opera companies — feel safe enough to come back? Will musicians gathered together on stages and in cramped pits convey confidence?Again, what will it feel like?And other crucial issues loom. Just months into the pandemic, when nationwide protests against racial injustice broke out after the killing of George Floyd, classical music was forced to grapple anew with questions of relevance, diversity and inclusion. One major institution after another issued statements condemning discrimination and pledging to do better at connecting with the diverse people they serve. Will these words be reflected in policies and programs?The Metropolitan Opera is speaking to the moment while addressing a gaping hole in its history. It will open its return season with “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” by the composer Terence Blanchard and the librettist Kasi Lemmons, based on a memoir by the New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow about growing up poor and Black in rural Louisiana. This will, shockingly, be the first opera by a Black composer to be presented by the company since its founding in 1883.In this case, I know what to expect, having reviewed the work’s 2019 premiere at Opera Theater of St. Louis, and can eagerly recommend this musically original, dramatically affecting and wrenchingly personal opera. Blanchard, a jazz trumpeter who has written acclaimed film scores, describes “Fire” not as a jazz opera, but as an opera in jazz. What he means, I think, is that jazz naturally permeates his compositional voice, but his score is symphonic — subtle, intricate, complex — taking an essentially traditional approach to opera as drama, with some inventive strokes.The Met’s vaccination policy means that it will not allow children under 12, which might threaten its holiday presentation of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe Met is requiring proof of vaccination from everyone in the audience, and will not allow children under 12, since they are not yet eligible for the vaccines. Will this affect the company’s abridged, English-language version of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” this holiday season? The production typically attracts lots of parents with children. The company’s website says that, should young children be able to be vaccinated this fall, they will of course be welcome. If not, it would seem untenable for the Met to go forward with a family-friendly entertainment in December.Nagging concerns like these — along with the threat of cancellations because of virus outbreaks — may well linger in all the performing arts..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}As for the New York Philharmonic, this season it will not have access to David Geffen Hall, which is in the midst of an extensive, long-awaited renovation. The orchestra will perform mostly at Alice Tully Hall, the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall.Some intriguing programs reveal serious attempts to bring in composers from underrepresented groups and to showcase exciting younger artists, without neglecting the core repertory. Dalia Stasevska will lead a program (Oct. 20-23) featuring works by Missy Mazzoli, John Adams and, of special interest, Anthony Davis, the winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Music for his opera “The Central Park Five.” Davis’s “You Have the Right to Remain Silent,” a clarinet concerto written in 2007 and revised four years later, is its composer’s autobiographical depiction of an encounter with the police, and is therefore more timely than ever. Anthony McGill, the Philharmonic’s superb principal clarinetist (and the orchestra’s only Black player) is the soloist.Earlier in the month (Oct. 14-16), the Philharmonic’s music director, Jaap van Zweden, leads a seemingly more traditional program — but with a twist that shows the subtle ways in which concerns about racial and gender representation are affecting the concert experience. At the Rose Theater — more intimate than Geffen Hall — Leif Ove Andsnes will play Robert Schumann’s beloved Piano Concerto, but will open the concert with Clara Schumann’s solo Romance in A Minor, a nod to a composer slowly getting her long-belated due.Jaap van Zweden, the New York Philharmonic’s music director, will lead the orchestra at different venues as David Geffen Hall is closed for renovations.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesYou might have thought that a powerhouse institution like Carnegie Hall would want to come roaring back. It says much about this still-dicey moment for classical music, in terms of both financial and public health, that the hall is pacing itself and keeping its fall season relatively light. Its opening night on Oct. 6 offers Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who leads the Metropolitan Opera and the Philadelphia Orchestra, in a program that attempts to be both a gala celebration and a statement of purpose.The program, featuring the Philadelphians, opens with Valerie Coleman’s new “Seven O’Clock Shout,” written during the pandemic, followed by Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2, with the dazzling Yuja Wang as soloist. Next comes that gala standard, Bernstein’s Overture to “Candide.” The Iranian-Canadian composer Iman Habibi’s “Jeder Baum spricht” (2019), commissioned by the orchestra for Beethoven’s 250th anniversary last year, was written in dialogue with Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixth symphonies. Here it will lead into an account of Beethoven’s Fifth, setting off a full Beethoven symphony cycle with Nézet-Séguin and the Philadelphia Orchestra, originally planned for last year.These classic symphonies will be interspersed with contemporary pieces — which, though not a novel idea, is a good one. It feels all too familiar for a complete Beethoven symphony cycle to dominate Carnegie’s season.But will it in practice? It may well be that for some time yet, hearing even standard works played beautifully will feel restorative, almost miraculous.Yet given the crises we have endured and the urgent challenges that remain, I hope my wish wins out that institutions try harder to connect and engage, to foster living composers and new generations of artists. I’ve long believed that many classical ensembles, especially major orchestras, spend too much time thinking about how they play and not enough about what they play and why they play it. We all love the standard repertory. But an ensemble puts more on the line and fosters classical music as a living art form when it presents a new piece, champions a neglected older work or takes a risk with unconventional programming.These things have always mattered crucially in my thinking — now, more than ever. If this results in what some may see as grading on a curve — by giving extra credit, in a sense, to artists who reach out and take risks — so be it. The status quo will no longer suffice. More

    • 88 Shares159 Views

      in Music

      When Europe Offered Black Composers an Ear

      by

      Spurned by institutions in America, artists were sometimes given more opportunities across the Atlantic.In early September 1945, amid the rubble of a bombed-out Berlin, the Afro-Caribbean conductor Rudolph Dunbar stepped onto a podium and bowed to an enthusiastic audience of German citizens and American military personnel.The orchestra had gathered in an old movie theater functioning as a makeshift concert hall in the newly designated American zone of the city. First on the program was “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Then came a fairly standard set of orchestral pieces, with Carl Maria von Weber’s “Oberon” Overture followed by Tchaikovsky’s “Pathétique” Symphony. But one piece stood out from the rest: William Grant Still’s “Afro-American Symphony.” When it premiered in 1931 in Rochester, N.Y., it was the first symphony by a Black American to be performed by a major orchestra.Still’s symphony received a robust round of performances in the United States in the 1930s. That decade was a watershed for Black composers like him, who finally managed to convince powerful American ensembles to perform their music. The “Afro-American Symphony” was quickly followed by Florence Price’s Symphony in E Minor, in 1933, and William Dawson’s “Negro Folk Symphony,” in 1934. These works appeared frequently on concert programs in America at the time — and then disappeared.Still’s symphony received a robust round of performances in the United States in the 1930s.The Vicksburg Post/Associated PressIt was Dunbar, a clarinetist who had studied at the Institute of Musical Art (later the Juilliard School), who brought back Still’s music. In New York, the two had struck up a friendship before Dunbar set off in 1924 for Europe, where he studied and performed for over a decade. A student of renowned musicians like the conductor Felix Weingartner and the clarinetist Louis Cahuzac, he was steeped in the world of European art music.But he was also a committed Black activist. Running in the same circles as Black Marxists and Pan-Africanists like George Padmore, Dunbar had long made plain his loathing of white supremacy, whether in the form of Nazism or British imperialism. In fact, he’d already performed Still’s “Afro-American Symphony” for its European debut a few years earlier, on a concert with the London Philharmonic at the Royal Albert Hall to raise funds for Black soldiers fighting the Nazis.Dunbar was invited to perform in Berlin by Leo Borchard, whom the victorious Allies had appointed the Philharmonic’s conductor, and was also an anti-Nazi dissident and resistance fighter who aided German Jews fleeing the Third Reich. The message of Dunbar’s debut could not be clearer: Classical music could not be divorced from a global fight against racism.In the 1980s, the pianist Althea Waites brought the music of Florence Price (shown here) to German audiences — who eagerly applauded.University of Arkansas Libraries Special CollectionsThe work of racial justice in the arts has always been a global effort. Europe’s role in this fight, however, deserves closer inspection. Spurned by the barriers white-dominated institutions placed on them in the United States, Black American composers and musicians have long perpetuated the idea that European audiences were more welcoming. Writing to The New York Age newspaper while studying abroad in London in 1908, the Black American composer Clarence Cameron White said as much: “On every side you find the European musician and music-lover as well realizes that music is too broad and too universal to be circumscribed by the complexion of the skin or texture of the hair.”There is some truth to White’s claim. Some of the earliest performances of William Grant Still’s music had taken place in Paris. At the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in February 1933, the Pasdeloup Orchestra performed his symphonic poem “Africa,” led by the Austrian conductor Richard Lert, who later fled to the United States after the rise of the Nazis. Safely exiled in Los Angeles, in 1944, Lert invited Black American bass Kenneth Spencer to join him in a performance of Nathaniel Dett’s oratorio “The Ordering of Moses,” another work by a Black composer that would soon disappear for decades.In June, one of the largest festivals outside the United States to celebrate the music of Black composers took place in Hamburg, Germany. Daniel Dittus/ElbphilharmonieIn Torino, Italy, in 1952, the Black American conductor Dean Dixon introduced the music of Ulysses Kay — who was residing at the American Academy in Rome as a winner of the prestigious Rome Prize — to Italian audiences. “Once you secure the allied interest of Europeans according to the highest standards available, you will be heard,” Dixon said.Later, during the Cold War, Kay toured Soviet Russia on behalf of the State Department. In the 1980s, the pianist Althea Waites brought the music of Florence Price to German audiences — who eagerly applauded. “There they listen to my music instead of looking at me,” Waites said. In recent years, composers such as Tania León and George Lewis have also received premieres in Europe.In June, one of the largest festivals outside the United States to celebrate the music of Black composers took place in Hamburg, Germany. Initiated and led by the Hampsong Foundation and the performer and scholar Louise Toppin, the three-day festival at the Elbphilharmonie showcased an array of contemporary pieces and historical works. (Full disclosure: I wrote program notes for the festival and supervised the translations for it.)“The whole experience ended up being a real celebration of Black excellence, but on a continent that I have called home for the past eight years,” said the composer Anthony R. Green, an American based in the Netherlands, whose pieces “Three Quotes from Shakespeare” and “Sojourner Truth” appeared in the festival.William Dawson’s “Negro Folk Symphony” was played at the festival.via W.E.B. Du Bois Papers, Special Collections and University Archives, UMass Amherst LibrariesStaging the festival was no easy feat. It involved translating dozens of Black American art songs from English into German. Moreover, historical negligence shaped what scores and parts the orchestra and singers could find. “This music was forgotten about,” the conductor Roderick Cox said of William Dawson’s “Negro Folk Symphony.” “It was neglected; you couldn’t get access to this music through the publishers; the parts were in shambles.”Indeed, Dawson’s symphony — once heralded as a brilliant success — had been dormant in the United States for decades. Perhaps unsurprising, the only recent recording of it was made in Vienna.But praising Europe for offering a platform for the music of Black American composers omits an important part of the story. White European support of and advocacy for Black American musicians has often come at the expense of their own Black populations. As many Black European intellectuals and activists have pointed out, Europeans know the names of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Trayvon Martin, but do they know those of Oury Jalloh, Stephen Lawrence, and Jerry Masslo?Prestigious music institutes such as Darmstadt, in Germany, have rarely invited Black composers to join their international communities, or given Germany-based Black composers such as Robert Owens and Benjamin Patterson their due. In the city of Hamburg, which has a Black population dating back to the 19th century and was the birthplace of Marie Nejar, an Afro-German woman who survived the Nazis performing as a child actress, the performers and audience at the Elbphilharmonie’s music festival this summer were almost entirely white.Europe has been lax about promoting its own historical Black composers and musicians, such as George Bridgetower, Amanda Aldridge, Chevalier de Saint-Georges and Avril Coleridge-Taylor. Many recent high-profile performances of Black European performers and composers can be attributed to the Chineke Orchestra in England — Europe’s first ensemble to have a majority of musicians of color — rather than to white European musical institutions. Other Black European composers, such as Werner Jaegerhuber, a Haitian-German composer who lived in Germany from 1915 until he was forced to flee the Nazis in 1937, have yet to receive significant European attention.The recognition of Black composers on any stage puts pressure on institutions to contend with their racist pasts and to imagine a better future. Rudolph Dunbar’s performance of Still’s “Afro-American Symphony” and Roderick Cox’s of Dawson’s “Negro Folk Symphony,” nearly a century apart, suggest that efforts to advance racial justice go hand in hand with a commitment to embracing music’s power. Performing the music of Black composers is not simply or only an opportunity to correct historical wrongs. Nor should it be considered the equivalent to eating your proverbial broccoli. Rather, it is an invitation to dine on the most exquisite meals. To fight for the music of Black composers is to fight for a better world. More

    • 88 Shares189 Views

      in Theater

      Micki Grant: ‘I Wanted to Open Eyes’

      by

      The composer and lyricist, who died at 92, was a trailblazer in virtually every field she touched.Theater in Manhattan was bristling with Black voices in the early 1970s, but these tended to be heard in smaller spaces like the New Federal Theater, the Negro Ensemble Company and the Urban Arts Corps. Micki Grant’s “Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope” spent time in such theaters before winding its way to Broadway in 1972, making it the first time a woman had written the book, music and lyrics to a Broadway musical.The result — four Tony Award nominations, a run of more than two years — was a testament to Grant, a trailblazer in virtually every field she touched. She died on Aug. 21 at 92. But the success of the show also stemmed in part from its image of Black America, one that Grant created through a blend of conviction and calculation.Just as “Hair” channeled the era’s countercultural passions into a package that (most) staid Broadway theatergoers could handle — Joe Papp, who squired that show to Broadway from his brand-new Public Theater in 1968, described it as “marvelous for middle-aged people” — “Don’t Bother Me” took a cleareyed but rarely confrontational stance at race relations. At one point, the cast members raised clenched fists, which then turned to peace signs.“I wanted to open eyes but not turn them away,” Grant told me in a 2018 interview about the work, which she described as a conscious divergence from more incendiary pieces by such Black playwrights as Ed Bullins and Amiri Baraka. “I wanted to come at it with a soft fist.” (Grant had just come home from the hospital when we met, but was still energetic enough to shave more than a decade off her stated age at the time without raising any suspicions.)And so the show discussed slavery and slumlords but also Flip Wilson and Archie Bunker, resulting in what the New York Times theater critic Clive Barnes described as “a mixture of a block party and a revival meeting.”As it happens, Grant was in a rare position to call the shots on these decisions. She had spent several years as a contract performer on a soap opera — one of the first Black actors to do so — playing an attorney, Peggy Nolan, on “Another World.” (She also starred in “Don’t Bother Me.”) She would go on to find success writing advertising jingles, winning a Clio award along the way.In 2018, Grant and Savion Glover, the choreographer and director, led a table reading of “Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope” at New York City Center.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesBut the advertising and soap opera industries aren’t exactly known for cultivating auteurist voices. Theater gave Grant a chance to write every syllable and every note of “Don’t Bother Me,” which earned her half of the show’s four Tony nominations. (Her frequent collaborator Vinnette Justine Carroll, who became the first Black woman to direct on Broadway, was also nominated.)It came up blank at the 1973 Tony Awards — “A Little Night Music” and “Pippin” also opened that season — but “Don’t Bother Me” showcased a musical voice equally comfortable with calypso, spoken-word, soul, funk, jazz, and even what could be described as proto-hip-hop. Not to mention gospel, which came to the forefront in “Your Arms Too Short to Box With God,” and other subsequent shows that Grant wrote or co-wrote.Dabblings in Black musical idioms were nothing new for Broadway, of course: Cole Porter never met an Afro-Caribbean rhythm he couldn’t use, while Frank Loesser all but trademarked the still common use of a gospel-style roof-raiser to get the crowd agitated near the end of a show. But Grant’s wide range of repurposings was of an altogether different nature, because it drew so heavily from her own background.This versatility turned her into a go-to lyricist for pre-existing melodies by Eubie Blake (“Eubie!”) but also Harold Arlen (“Sweet & Hot”) and Jacques Brel (“Jacques Brel Blues”), and it also earned her a spot on the all-star writing team of 1978’s “Working” alongside James Taylor, Stephen Schwartz and Mary Rodgers. When I spent long college afternoons listening to published Broadway scores, one particularly fast passage in her “Working” song “Lovin’ Al” had me hitting rewind on the library’s cassette player for a solid half-hour.Grant, a former national chairwoman of the Actors Equity union’s Equal Opportunity Employment Committee, viewed as her biggest professional disappointment “Phillis,” a 1986 musical about the pioneering Black poet Phillis Wheatley. In a recent interview for American Theatre magazine, published after her death, she blamed the white director for the show’s failure, saying he had no knowledge of or sensitivity to the subject matter.But Grant bounced back from this, as she had done from the many other setbacks along the way in becoming her own sort of pioneer. “There’s so little time for hatred,” Grant sang almost 50 years ago in the show that earned her a place in history. Her hand was equally capable of clenching tight and relaxing into a peace sign. The fist was soft, but it held considerable force. More

    • 113 Shares179 Views

      in Theater

      Broadway Power Brokers Pledge Diversity Changes as Theaters Reopen

      by

      To address Black artists’ concerns, the pact calls for forgoing all-white creative teams, renaming theaters for Black artists and establishing diversity rules for the Tonys.Fifteen months after the George Floyd protests called renewed attention to racism in many areas of society, some of the most powerful players on Broadway have signed a pact pledging to strengthen the industry’s diversity practices as theaters reopen following the lengthy shutdown prompted by the coronavirus pandemic.The agreement commits Broadway and its touring productions not only to the types of diversity training and mentorship programs that have become common in many industries, but also to a variety of sector-specific changes: the industry is pledging to forgo all-white creative teams, hire “racial sensitivity coaches” for some shows, rename theaters for Black artists and establish diversity rules for the Tony Awards.The document, called “A New Deal for Broadway,” was developed under the auspices of Black Theater United, one of several organizations established last year as an outgrowth of the anger Black theater artists felt over the police killings of Floyd in Minnesota and Breonna Taylor in Kentucky. Black Theater United’s founding members include some of the most celebrated performers working in the American theater, including Audra McDonald, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Billy Porter, Wendell Pierce, Norm Lewis and LaChanze.The signatories include the owners and operators of all 41 Broadway theaters — commercial and nonprofit — as well as the Broadway League, which is a trade organization representing producers, and Actors’ Equity Association, which is a labor union representing actors and stage mangers. Their pledges are not legally enforceable, but they agreed to “hold ourselves and each other accountable for implementing these commitments.”The document was negotiated at a series of virtual meetings that began while theaters were closed because of the pandemic; the changes are being announced as two Broadway shows have begun performances this summer, with 15 more planning to start, or restart, in September.“We convened all of the power players in our industry — the unions, the theater owners, producers and creatives — and had conversations about changing habits, structures and creating accountability,” said the director Schele Williams. “We knew that before our theaters robustly started opening in the fall, everyone deserved to know who they were in the space, and how they would be treated, and that’s something none of us have known in our careers.”One of the key changes being called for is that creative teams — which include directors, writers, composers, choreographers and designers — should be diverse. A section signed by directors and writers vows to “never assemble an all-white creative team on a production again, regardless of the subject matter of the show,” while a section signed by producers says, “We will make best efforts to ensure true racial diversity on all future productions.”The meetings, which started in March, were funded by the Ford Foundation and facilitated by Kenji Yoshino, director of the Center for Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging at New York University School of Law. “Everyone came in ready to make change,” the producer David Stone said.Among the changes that will be most visible to the general public: The three big commercial landlords on Broadway — the Shubert, Nederlander and Jujamcyn organizations — each pledged that at least one theater they operate would be named for a Black artist. Jujamcyn already operates the August Wilson Theater, the only Broadway house named for a Black artist.“This is a movement that is going to make change, and we’re happy to be part of it,” said Robert E. Wankel, chairman and chief executive of the Shubert Organization..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}The document’s signatories are committing to changes that would affect many aspects of the theater business, from casting to hair care. But Broadway is a highly unionized work force, and the only labor unions that signed the agreement are those representing actors, stage managers, makeup artists and hairstylists.That leaves some conspicuous gaps — there is pervasive concern about low levels of diversity among Broadway stagehands, musicians and design teams, for example — and the leadership of Black Theater United said that although the group has endorsements from individuals working in those areas, it will continue to work to win more organizational support for the document.The actor NaTasha Yvette Williams said that she expected more groups to embrace the calls for change. “It’s only a matter of time before they come around,” she said.The director Kenny Leon acknowledged frustration that his own union, the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, was not a signatory. “I am disappointed that my directing union hasn’t signed on yet,” he said. “But as a Black member of that union, I’m going to keep fighting for that.”The executive director of the union, Laura Penn, said the organization was “deeply committed to the principles” of the agreement, but opted not to sign because much of it is “beyond the scope of the union’s purview.”Jeanine Tesori, a composer, said she is hopeful that the variety of professions represented in a show’s music department will jointly commit to creating more opportunity in what can be a tough area to break into. “We have to invite newcomers in,” she said.The signatories pledged to create a new, mandatory, industrywide training program for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, Accessibility and Belonging. And, with an eye toward further diversifying the industry, they also committed to “mentoring and sponsoring Black talent in our respective fields on an ongoing basis.”“Everybody has a Black Lives Matter statement out,” said the actress Allyson Tucker. “The words are no longer enough. What is the action?”Among the other commitments: remove “biased or stereotypical language” from casting notices; insist on diversity riders prioritizing inclusivity as part of director and author contracts; search more widely for music contractors, who are the gatekeepers to orchestra staffing; and abolish unpaid internships. “Internships had a reputation of being for people who could afford to not be paid any money,” said the actor Darius de Haas.The signatories also commit to “sensitivity” steps for shows dealing with race. “For shows that raise racial sensitivities, we will appoint a racial sensitivity coach whose role is akin to an intimacy coach,” the document says. And separately, it says, “While acknowledging that creatives can write about any subject that captures their interest or imagination, we will, when writing scripts that raise identity issues (such as race), make best efforts to commission sensitivity reads during the drafting process to assist in flagging issues and providing suggestions for improvement. Playwrights and/or those individuals or entities with contractual approval rights will retain creative control to accept or reject the sensitivity reader’s recommendations.”“We have to tell difficult stories,” Schele Williams said. “But we also must take great care.”The document does not detail what kinds of diversity rules the group is seeking for the Tony Awards. But the actor Vanessa Williams said the document’s call for diversity “requirements for Tony Award eligibility” was inspired by new rules for the Academy Awards that will require films to meet specified inclusion standards to qualify for a best picture nomination. More

    • 100 Shares109 Views

      in Music

      Michael Morgan, Adventurous Oakland Maestro, Dies at 63

      by

      As music director of the Oakland Symphony, he sought diversity in his audiences as well as in his programming.Michael Morgan, the music director of the Oakland Symphony, who in his 30 years in that post sought to bring orchestral music to a broader audience, particularly young people and people of color, died on Aug. 20 in Oakland, Calif. He was 63.The cause was complications of an infection, the orchestra said. Mr. Morgan had received a kidney transplant in May and had just resumed conducting last month.As one of the few Black maestros leading a substantial professional orchestra, Mr. Morgan was eager to diversify the symphony’s programming and its audience.“My main goal,” he told the weekly newspaper The California Voice in 1991 as he was beginning his Oakland tenure, “is to show the rest of the field of orchestra music that you can make an orchestra relevant and of interest to the community, especially to Black youngsters who some may think are not interested in anything.”He made countless visits to schools in the area. He brought in an eclectic list of guest artists to the Paramount Theater, the orchestra’s home base, including Isaac Hayes in 2001 and Carlos Santana in 2010. He initiated a program called “Playlist” in which guests including the comedian W. Kamau Bell and the labor activist Dolores Huerta selected and introduced pieces to be performed.Colleagues said Mr. Morgan was interested in more than simply putting on an entertaining program.“Michael wasn’t afraid to address social issues head-on, and we (the Oakland Symphony) were the tools he used to bridge the gap between races and different political beliefs,” Dawn Harms, co-concertmaster of the symphony, said by email. “There was nothing like an Oakland Symphony concert with Michael at the helm. The audience was so incredibly diverse, joined together under one roof, rocking the Paramount Theater with such a joyful, enthusiastic noise.”A feature article about Mr. Morgan in The San Jose Mercury News in 2013 bore a telling headline: “Nobody Falls Asleep When Michael Morgan’s Conducting.”Mr. Morgan in an undated photo. “When I began my career, I was not involved in the idea of being a role model or increasing minority numbers in the field,” he once said. “I came to realize, however, that someone has to take responsibility.”Oakland SymphonyMichael DeVard Morgan was born on Sept. 17, 1957, in Washington. His mother, Mabel (Dickens) Morgan, was a health researcher, and his father, Willie, was a biologist.He grew up in the city, where he started taking piano lessons when he was 8. By 12 he was conducing his junior high school orchestra.Mr. Morgan studied composition at Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio. At 22 he entered the international Hans Swarowsky conducting competition in Vienna — just for the experience, he said later — and ended up winning. That earned him a chance to conduct Mozart’s “The Abduction From the Seraglio” at the Vienna State Opera in 1982.Georg Solti made him assistant conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1986. In his seven years there he also regularly directed the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and the Chicago Youth Symphony. And he began to develop a sense of mission.“When I began my career, I was not involved in the idea of being a role model or increasing minority numbers in the field,” he told The Chicago Tribune in 1993. “I came to realize, however, that someone has to take responsibility.”Mr. Morgan was a guest conductor with numerous major American orchestras, as well as with New York City Opera, Opera Theater of St. Louis and the Washington National Opera. When he conducted the New York Philharmonic in 1992, news accounts said he was only the fifth Black conductor to do so.At the time, he told The New York Times that he felt his race was both a help and a hindrance.“I have a very nice little career now,” he said, “but I also know that sometimes that’s because it has been to the advantage of an organization to have me, an African-American, around. I see what others my age do, and that there are more star-studded careers that I have no doubt I would have if I were not Black.”Lack of diversity has long characterized the classical music world. A 2014 study found that only 1.8 percent of the players in top ensembles were Black and just 2.5 percent were Latino.Mr. Morgan’s last two years in Chicago overlapped with his tenure in Oakland. By then he was fully committed to getting more young people, especially young Black people, interested in orchestra music.“It could add one more piece to the puzzle of their lives,” he told The California Voice in 1991.A high point of any Oakland season was Mr. Morgan’s annual “Let Us Break Bread Together” concert, held late in the year and featuring a musical cornucopia that might include gospel singers, choruses of various kinds, a klezmer band and high school students. Each year had a theme, and the range was wide — Pete Seeger music in 2014; Frank Sinatra the next year; music related to the Black Panthers the next.“In Oakland, we’re very conscious of social justice issues,” Mr. Morgan told The San Francisco Chronicle in 2016. “Oakland has always been about, and continues to be about, social change.”James Hasler, president of the symphony’s board, said that outlook defined Mr. Morgan.“His vision of orchestras as service organizations was a beacon locally and nationally,” he said in a statement. “This vision is his legacy.”Mieko Hatano, the Oakland Symphony’s executive director, promised to continue Mr. Morgan’s vision.“Michael challenged us to speak directly to our community,” Dr. Hatano said by email. “‘It’s not what we talk about,’ he would say. ‘It’s who is in the room when we’re taking about it.’ He wasn’t a conductor who also had a social conscience. To Michael, it was one and the same. And this is how the Oakland Symphony will carry on.”Mr. Morgan, who lived in Oakland, is survived by his mother and a sister, Jacquelyn Morgan.In late July Mr. Morgan made a guest-conducting appearance with the San Francisco Symphony, delivering a striking program that included an overlooked female composer, Louise Farrenc, and a dash of 1920s jazz.“For San Francisco audiences,” Joshua Kosman wrote in a review in The Chronicle, “the whole evening felt like a little burst of vitality from across the bay.” More

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in Television

      Micki Grant, Groundbreaking Broadway Composer, Dies at 92

      by

      With “Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope,” she became the first woman to write the book, music and lyrics of a Broadway musical.Micki Grant, who in the early 1970s became the first woman to write the book, music and lyrics of a Broadway musical, “Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope,” a soulful, spirited exploration of Black life, died on Saturday in Manhattan. She was 92.Her death, at Mount Sinai Morningside hospital, was announced by Joan Allen, a family spokeswoman.Ms. Grant, an actress, composer, playwright and musician, had developed “Don’t Bother Me” for two years with the director Vinnette Carroll, taking it to small theaters in New York, Philadelphia and Washington before opening on Broadway in April 1972.She would also be known for her work on another Broadway musical, “Your Arms Too Short to Box With God,” and for her seven years on the NBC soap opera “Another World.”Set in New York City, “Don’t Bother Me” explored topics like ghetto life, Black power, feminism and student protests with an all-Black cast performing songs — all by Ms. Grant — that drew from rock, jazz, funk, blues calypso and other musical genres.Ms. Grant recalled in 2018 that she and Ms. Carroll had wanted audiences of the musical to recognize the similarities among races, not the differences.“And I think that’s expressed when you find out in the end that the audience is willing to reach out and take someone’s hand,” she said in an interview with The New York Amsterdam News. “Some people in the audience never held the hand of a person of a different race before, and all of the sudden, they’re holding another person’s hand.”The musical got rave reviews, including one from Clive Barnes of The New York Times, who wrote: “It is the unexpected that is the most delightful. Last night at the Playhouse Theater a new musical came clapping, stomping and stamping in. It is fresh, fun and Black.”The show received Tony nominations for best musical, best original score, best book (also by Ms. Grant) and best direction. It won a Grammy for best musical theater album, making Ms. Grant the first female composer to win in that category.“Don’t Bother Me” was revived in 2016 as a concert performance by the York Theater Company in Manhattan and two years later by the Encores! Off-Center series at New York City Center, directed by Savion Glover.Amber Barbee Pickens, foreground, in the Encores! production of “Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope” at New York City Center in 2018. One critic said of the original Broadway production: “A new musical came clapping, stomping and stamping in. It is fresh, fun and Black.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesJames Morgan, York’s producing artistic director, said in a phone interview that Ms. Grant had “wanted a say in everything and would say, ‘No, that’s not how that goes.’ I’d tell her, ‘We want this to be your version of the show.’”He had been hoping to stage a full Off Broadway production of “Don’t Worry,” he said, but couldn’t raise the money. “I so wanted it for her, because there’s still a big audience for it,” he said.Ms. Grant was born Minnie Louise Perkins on June 30, 1929, in Chicago to Oscar and Gussie (Cobbins) Perkins. Her father was a barber and a self-taught pianist, her mother, a saleswoman for Stanley Home Products.Minnie was smitten by theater and music at a young age. At 8 she played the Spirit of Spring, touching flowers to bring them to life, in a community center production. She began taking piano and double-bass lessons at about the same age.And, she recalled in an interview with The Times in 1972: “I was busy writing poetry and walking around the house reciting it. My family always listened and said what nice poetry it was.”Ms. Grant began writing music at 14 or 15 and acting in community theater at 18. She studied at the Chicago School of Music and later attended the University of Illinois, Chicago.But one semester shy of graduating, she left to perform in Los Angeles, where, in 1961, she appeared in a musical revue, “Fly Blackbird,” a social satire about the evils of segregation. She moved with the show to its Off Broadway production in 1962.By then, she had changed her name to Micki.Ms. Grant made her Broadway debut a year later in a supporting role in “Tambourines to Glory,” a short-lived “gospel singing play” — written by the poet Langston Hughes with music by Jobe Huntley — about two female street preachers in Harlem. It also starred Robert Guillaume and Louis Gossett Jr. A year later she appeared in a revival of Marc Blitzstein’s musical play “The Cradle Will Rock,” set in 1937 during the Great Depression.She turned to television in 1965, beginning a seven-year run on “Another World” playing a secretary-turned-lawyer, Peggy Nolan. She is believed to have been the first Black contract player in soaps. She later had roles in the soap operas “Guiding Light,” “Edge of Night” and “All My Children.”Ms. Grant in the NBC soap opera “Another World” in 1968. She had a seven-year run on the show playing a secretary-turned-lawyer.Fred Hermansky/NBCCasey Childs, the founder of the Primary Stages Company in New York, recalled directing her in one soap opera episode. “She was an absolutely lovely actress, who understood the need on a soap to move quickly and make fast choices,” he said in an interview.During her long run on “Another World,” Ms. Grant was building a theatrical legacy with Ms. Carroll, who in 1967 founded the Urban Arts Corps to provide a showcase for Black and Puerto Rican performers.They put together the first production of “Don’t Bother Me” in 1970 at the company’s theater on West 20th Street in Manhattan. Ms. Grant also wrote the music and lyrics for a song and dance version of the Irwin Shaw novel “Bury the Dead” and for a children’s show called “Croesus and the Witch.”Working with Ms. Carroll, she said, was a “magical” experience.“It all came together so perfectly,” Ms. Grant told American Theater magazine in an interview this year. “It was a fortunate meeting between us: I needed somewhere to present my work, and she needed the new work to present because of who she was — having original works brought out her creativity, rather than trying to repeat something that was already done.”The two women also collaborated on “Your Arms Too Short to Box With God,” an acclaimed gospel-infused musical that opened on Broadway in 1976 and ran for 429 performances. Ms. Carroll wrote the book, and music and lyrics were by Alex Bradford, with additional songs by Ms. Grant.Two years later, Ms. Grant was one of the five songwriters behind the musical “Working,” which was based on the writer Studs Terkel’s book of interviews with everyday people about their jobs. The group was nominated for a Tony for best original score.In one of Ms. Grant’s songs in “Working,” a woman laments: “If I could’ve done what I could’ve done/I could’ve done big things./With some luck to do what I wanted to do/I would’ve done big things./Swam a few rivers/Climbed a few hills/Paid all my bills.”She returned to Broadway one last time, with a musical, “It’s So Nice to Be Civilized” (1980), which closed after eight performances.Her other credits include the English-language lyrics to songs in “Jacques Brel Blues,” which debuted in East Hampton, N.Y., in 1988, and “Don’t Underestimate a Nut,” a musical based on the life of George Washington Carver, the agricultural scientist who promoted the cultivation of peanuts. It was commissioned by a children’s theater in Omaha, Neb., in 1994.In the late 1990s, Ms. Grant spent two years with Lizan Mitchell on a tour of the United States and South Africa as they played the centenarian Delany sisters in “Having Our Say,” Emily Mann’s Tony Award-winning play.Ms. Grant had no immediate survivors. Her marriages to Milton Grant and Ray McCutcheon ended in divorce.When Encores! revived “Don’t Bother Me,” Ms. Grant, reflecting on its creation, said that her and Ms. Carroll’s goal had not been to produce an incendiary musical about the difficulties faced by Black people in America.“There was a lot of angry theater out there at the time, especially in the Black community — Bullins, Jones,” she said, referring to the playwrights Ed Bullins and LeRoi Jones, who became known as Amiri Baraka. “I wanted to come at it with a soft fist. I wanted to open eyes but not turn eyes away.” More

    • 50 Shares189 Views

      in Music

      Jay-Z’s ‘Black Album’ Reconsidered

      by

      Tally Abecassis and Phyllis Fletcher and Jay-Z at his studio in Manhattan in 2003.Chester Higgins Jr./The New York TimesIn 2003, Jay-Z announced he was retiring at 33 years old. He had several platinum records under his belt and a budding relationship with Beyoncé. Then, he released the album intended to be his last: “The Black Album.”Reggie Ugwu, a Culture reporter for The New York Times, was a senior in high school when “The Black Album” came out, and it became the soundtrack of his life. He loved not just the music, but the message: that being indisputably excellent was the only way to make it.But after the summer of 2020, as a global Black Lives Matter movement took off in response to the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, Reggie started to revisit the lessons of the album.“There was something that was missing from my understanding of how the world worked and my place in it,” Reggie said in this episode.Nearly 18 years later, Reggie reflects on “The Black Album” with Dodai Stewart, a deputy editor. Listen to their conversation.In this podcast episode:Dodai Stewart, a deputy editor for Narrative Projects at The New York Times.Reggie Ugwu, a pop culture reporter for The Times. More

    • 113 Shares159 Views

      in Music

      It’s Never Too Late to Record Your First Album

      by

      “It’s Never Too Late” is a new series that tells the stories of people who decide to pursue their dreams on their own terms.One day a couple years back, the woman who has long cleaned Russ Ellis’s house in Berkeley, Calif., showed up with a new helper. Mr. Ellis did not think to ask her name.Perhaps he forgot. Or maybe the recovering academic — a celebrated architecture professor at the University of California, Berkeley, later a vice chancellor — had other things on his mind. Whatever the case, the lapse rattled him.“Russell Ellis, your father’s mother was born into slavery,” he said to himself. “You have the right to invisibilize no one.”He not only learned the woman’s name then and there — Eliza — but pledged to sing it next time she came by. With that pledge, something strange shook loose in him.“A song walked right in. Eliiiiiza. Eliiiiiiiiiza. And then the urge kept coming.”Calling on experienced musician friends to help, Mr. Ellis spent the following year recording “Songs from My Garden,” his first-ever album. He was 85. (He turned 86 in June.) It consists of 11 original songs, released online with an extremely local label, in a variety of genres.The experience delighted him at a new level — he got to explore all new terrain, with a creative abandon he’d never known. Then, with that, he was delighted to conclude his brief recording career. (The following interview has been edited and condensed.)Aubrey Trinnaman for The New York TimesQ: Tell me about your life before the “Eliza” moment.A: I never bit down on any one thing. Over the years I’ve been an athlete, a parent, a friend, a lover. “In the golden sandbox” — that’s how I think of my life in California. As a kid growing up in the working-class Black world, you wanted a secure job at the post office or teaching school. But doing new things has always been part of my life.After retiring, I got into stone carving, then modeling clay, then steel work and painting. Sometimes I’d see former colleagues from Berkeley and they were still kind of wearing the clothes of the old office. I couldn’t have been happier to let go of all that.How hard was it to start writing music for the first time?Not hard at all. The songs just started coming, easily and naturally. I have always been a laborer, but I suddenly had the experience of a muse saying, “I gotcha, I’m taking over.”What did it feel like, doing this entirely new thing?Having that muse — it’s like I was accompanied by another self, more sophisticated and supple than I was. I’m an empiricist. But if I had to romanticize, I’d say it was a spirit that came to visit. It was one of the best experiences of my life. What a joy to have stuff flow like that.One side effect: You know how you get a song in your head sometimes? I now get whole orchestrated movements. New doors still open as you age. Along with creaky limbs, interesting things happen, too.Mr. Ellis at his home in Berkeley, Calif. “I think doing the album made me a kinder person,” he said. Aubrey Trinnaman for The New York TimesHow did you learn about recording and songwriting?I’m kind of connected to the musical world through my children and their friends. I exploited any contacts I had: Would you mind helping me with this for free? Everyone was very generous.Were you nervous, taking the first steps into this new world?There are benefits to age. Not a lot, but some. I’m too old to get nervous. And nothing was riding on this.What kinds of challenges did you encounter at the beginning?The hardest thing was the blues. Recording my song “Night Driver (The Next-to-Last Old-Ass Black Man’s Bragging Blues)” was intimidating. Singing the blues ain’t just something you stand up and do. You have to be in it, you have to mean it, you have to deliver it in a way that people get into it themselves.How did this album change you?A big surprise to me about aging is that you do keep changing. I think doing the album made me a kinder person. Having my kids’ clear respect and support with it — it helped me feel better about myself, and when you feel better about yourself, you feel better about other people.In one of his many pursuits, Russ Ellis was a U.C.L.A. track star. In 1956, Mr. Ellis, second from left, ran in the 400-meter heats of the U.S. Olympic trials in Los Angeles.Hy Peskin, via Getty ImagesAlso, I was onstage for a living, teaching classes for 150 students, then representing the university in my administrative role. Before that I was a track star at U.C.L.A., from ’54 to ’58. If I ran a good race, my stroll across campus was an act of celebrity.All that stage time was not good for me. I felt somewhat unreal. I realized, when I finished this album, that was my last expression of my desire for it. I have been happy to get offstage.What’s next for you?My wife is suffering some significant health problems. It’s normal trouble, as they say — but it’s not trivial. Right now my life is about caregiving.What would you tell someone who’s feeling stuck in their life?Do something that involves other people. Even one other person. Getting out of a groove — sometimes you just need company.There’s this fantasy that creativity is something you do alone, by candlelight. No! Do something with other people who are as genuinely interested as you are.Was Mr. Ellis nervous about his album? “There are benefits to age. Not a lot, but some,” he said. “I’m too old to get nervous.”Aubrey Trinnaman for The New York TimesWhat do you wish you’d known about life when you were younger?That doesn’t involve sex?Life is shorter than you think and longer than you think. My two best friends are also Black men in their 80s. We marvel about our actuarial improbability. I’m happy to have used my time in so many different ways — ways that connected me to the world, to people.Were there experiences before the album that helped prepare you for it?Over the last 10 years I’ve actually had a bit of an art career. In the process I discovered that I wasn’t as vulnerable as I thought. At one point I had a piece in a group show, at a gallery. I walked by it just as a guy was saying, “this painting sucks.” And I didn’t die! I actually went over and, without telling him I was the artist, asked why he said that. Turned out he was a painter, and he told me his reasons. I learned a whole bunch.Any other lessons you can pass on?Take note of what’s interesting in your life. Don’t keep every little scrap of paper. But take note.We’re looking for people who decide that it’s never too late to switch gears, change their life and pursue dreams. Should we talk to you or someone you know? Share your story here. More