Shutdowns (Institutional)

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Music

      Taiwan Was a Covid Haven for Performers. Then Cases Flared.

      by

      One of the few places where performances continued steadily for much of the pandemic has had to shut down theaters just as they are reopening elsewhere.TAIPEI, Taiwan — For much of the past year, Taiwan has been a sanctuary for performing artists, the rare almost-Covid-free place where audiences could cram into concert halls to hear live music and sip coffee together at intermission.The island played host to modern dance festivals, full-fledged productions of “La Traviata” and “The Phantom of the Opera,” and a recital of Bach’s cello suites by Yo-Yo Ma, which was attended by more than 4,000 people.But a recent surge in cases — Taiwan’s worst outbreak since the start of the pandemic — has brought a halt to cultural life on the island, forcing performing arts centers, concert halls and museums to shutter just as they are coming back to life in the rest of the world.Performers from Taiwan and abroad have been caught in the middle, grappling with lost income and an avalanche of canceled engagements.“Everything blew up,” said the American clarinetist Charles Neidich, who recently made the 7,781-mile trip from New York to Taipei only to have his first live performance in more than 400 days canceled.Neidich, who had been engaged to play a clarinet concerto by the American composer John Corigliano with the Taipei Symphony Orchestra, endured two weeks of hotel quarantine, one of the strict measures that had helped Taiwan tame the virus. Then Taipei went into a state of semi-lockdown last week, so he packed up and went home.“This is my non-adventure,” he said.The outbreak, coming as the government’s vaccination program has gotten off to a slow start, is forcing Taipei to shut down just as other cities around the world are finally reopening. In London, the theaters of the West End brought up their curtains last week. Officials in New York announced that Radio City Music Hall would soon allow full capacity, maskless crowds back inside, as long as they have been vaccinated.The American clarinetist Charles Neidich flew from New York to Taipei to give his first live performance in more than a year, but the concert was canceled.I-Hwa Cheng for The New York TimesTaiwan’s experience is a reminder of the ongoing uncertainty of life in the pandemic, the threat posed by the virus and its power to upset even the most carefully crafted of plans. Semi-staged performances of Verdi’s “Falstaff” have been called off. The French musical “Notre Dame de Paris” has been postponed.Even though the number of cases in Taiwan is low compared with many parts of the world — 283 cases were reported on Tuesday, fewer than in New York City — the authorities are doubling down on restrictions, hoping that lockdowns can bring the virus under control within weeks or months as Taiwan tries to speed its lumbering vaccine rollout.Artists are optimistic that concerts, dances, plays and museum exhibitions will soon return.“This is a place used to earthquakes and typhoons,” said Lin Hwai-min, the founder of Cloud Gate Dance Theater, a contemporary dance troupe, which has delayed performances until later in the summer. “The crisis comes, you deal with it and you come back to restore everything.”Over the past year Cloud Gate has suffered financially from the cancellations of its planned tours to the United States and Europe. But with infections near zero in Taiwan and residents hungry for entertainment, the company has offset those losses with strong demand at home, premiering new works before sold-out crowds.“It used to be so surreal that we could perform,” Lin said. “Now for the first time we are confronting the reality of the virus, like our peers in Western countries.”Taiwan’s closing of its borders early in the pandemic and its strict public health measures, including mask mandates and extensive contact tracing, turned the island of 23.5 million into a coronavirus success story. But the emergence of more contagious variants in recent months, a relaxation of quarantine rules and a vaccine shortage gave the virus an opening.Before that, the lack of widespread transmission in Taiwan made it easier for performance venues to operate near full capacity. And theaters and concert halls enforced tough public health measures that have been adjusted depending on the number of confirmed cases.At many venues, attendees were required to provide their names and phone numbers to be used for tracing in case of an outbreak. Masks and temperature checks were required. Some concert halls barred the selling of food and drinks. Seats at some spaces were staggered to resemble flowers, in an arrangement that came to be known in Taiwan as “plum blossom seating.”Despite the vigilance, there were occasional scares. More than a hundred people were forced to quarantine in March of last year after coming into contact with the Australian composer Brett Dean, who tested positive for the virus after performing in Taiwan. The incident was front-page news in Taiwan, with some people fuming that Dean — whose “Hamlet” is scheduled at the Metropolitan Opera in New York next season — had been allowed to perform even though he had a cough.Lydia Kuo, the executive director of the National Symphony Orchestra, which collaborated with Dean, said the scare taught the orchestra the importance of maintaining strict health measures even when infections were near zero.“We were facing an unknown enemy,” she said. “We were lucky to face this reality very early.”Taiwan’s still-active cultural scene attracted talent from around the world over the past year when many artists were without stable work and confined at home. There were visits by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the German organist Felix Hell, and Ma, the renowned cellist, who chartered a flight to the island for a tour in November.Many musicians with roots in Taiwan have also returned, some for an extended visit. Ray Chen, a violinist, came back in August at the urging of his family and has taken part in about 20 live concerts, master classes and music education outreach events since then. He said he was struck by the care people showed toward one another and the widespread adherence to public health rules, even when Taiwan went months without any reported infections.“Everyone is willing to play a part,” Chen said. “Everyone values life.”Taiwan’s strict approach has not been popular in all corners of the artistic world. After the outbreak this month, some artists questioned the government’s decision to close performance venues, concerned that it would hurt performers’ income.Lang Tsu-yun, a Taiwanese actress who leads a theater troupe, provoked controversy when she suggested, in a sharply worded Facebook post, that the restrictions would be devastating to arts groups.“Do you know how long we rehearse?” Lang wrote. “Do you know how many of us are working hard?” (After coming under criticism for her comments, Lang deleted the post and apologized.)A masked crowd at a performance at the National Concert Hall in Taipei in November, when low numbers of coronavirus cases allowed for a virtually normal cultural life.Ann Wang/ReutersThe government has provided tens of millions of dollars in subsidies to arts groups during the pandemic, but some performers say the grants have not been enough to offset losses. Officials say restrictions on large gatherings are necessary to curb the rising rate of infections.But for visiting performers caught in the middle of the latest surge, the experience has been frustrating.The violinist Cho-Liang Lin was excited to arrive in Taiwan last month, his third trip to the island since the start of the pandemic. After livestreaming for months and playing in empty halls in the United States, where he lives, he had come to relish the energy of live performances in Taiwan, where he was born, despite the mandatory quarantine.Then this month, Lin’s concert with the Taipei Symphony Orchestra, with which he was going to perform Korngold’s Violin Concerto, was canceled two hours after his first rehearsal. He was also forced to cancel a summer festival for young musicians that he leads in Taipei. He was devastated, going out with friends to drink Scotch.“All that work and waiting around went for nothing,” said Lin, who returned home to Houston last week. “I can’t help but notice the irony here. The model citizen of the world now has become a bit of a problem child.”Amy Chang Chien contributed reporting. More

    • 113 Shares129 Views

      in Music

      Mixing Healing and Strife, the Met Opera Sings Again

      by

      The company’s continuing labor tensions hovered over two consoling concerts featuring its orchestra and chorus.On Sunday evening, 430 days after the coronavirus pandemic closed the Metropolitan Opera, the company returned.Members of the Met’s orchestra and chorus, conducted by its music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and joined by four soloists, twice presented a 45-minute program for an audience of 150.The location wasn’t the company’s home at Lincoln Center; instead, the concerts were held at the Knockdown Center, a door factory turned rough-hewed art and performance space in Queens. But these were truly, finally Met forces, brought together amid the contentious labor disputes that still threaten the company’s official reopening, planned for September.“What a privilege it is to say good evening to you, to welcome you here,” Nézet-Séguin told the audience before beginning the concert. The purpose, he added, was primarily to “resume what we do” — that is, to make music. But the performances were also intended as an expression of gratitude to essential workers; some tickets were set aside for emergency medical staff affiliated with Mount Sinai’s hospital in Queens.Owens sang an aria from Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte.”Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesNézet-Séguin, left, conducted as Costello sang.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesHovering over the concerts were the Met’s continuing labor tensions. The company’s closure has cost it some $150 million in revenue, and its many union workers were furloughed early in the pandemic. Peter Gelb, the general manager, has, like administrators at performing arts institutions everywhere, been trying to exact long-term concessions from the Met’s labor force, which the unions are strongly resisting.Just days ago, the Met reached a deal with the union representing its chorus, dancers and some others. But talks with the orchestra musicians, who agreed in March to begin accepting some payments in exchange for returning to the bargaining table, are ongoing. And on Thursday, the union representing the stage hands, who have been locked out since December, held a boisterous rally outside Lincoln Center.Without glossing over the strife, the Queens concerts (I attended the second) came across as a genuine gesture of good will and shared artistic commitment. Nézet-Séguin told the crowd that he and the artists had tried to devise a program that reflected the hardships we’ve all endured, but also offered comfort and hope.The program also made it clear that the Met is attempting to address longstanding issues of inequity brought to the forefront of the nation’s consciousness in months of demonstrations against racial injustice last year. Three of the four superb solo singers were Black, and the offerings included an aria from Terence Blanchard’s opera “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” which is planned to open the Met’s season in September — the first work by a Black composer ever presented by the company.Blue sang the tender “Ave Maria” from Verdi’s “Otello.”Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesAustin sang an aria from “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” the Terence Blanchard opera planned to reopen the Met in September.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesOn Sunday the young baritone Justin Austin sang “Peculiar Grace,” in which Charles, the main character in the opera — which is based on a memoir by Charles M. Blow, an opinion columnist for The New York Times — thinks back to his troubled youth, growing up poor in Louisiana, “a Black boy from a lawless town,” he sings in the words of Kasi Lemmons’s libretto.“Where everyone carries a gun,” Austin sang with burnished sound and vulnerability,” “I carried shame in a holster ’round my waist.”The concert opened with the 12 choristers and 20 orchestra players giving a soft-spoken account of the poignant “Lacrimosa” from Mozart’s Requiem. Then the soprano Angel Blue brought radiant sound and aching sensitivity to the “Ave Maria” from Verdi’s “Otello.”Next came several excerpts from Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte,” starting with the overture, which here sounded less an introduction to a comedic romp than a sublime prelude to a tale of a quest for wisdom, purpose and love. The young quester, Prince Tamino, sings an aria of smitten devotion to an image of the lovely Pamina, touching music sung ardently here by the tenor Stephen Costello. And when the stentorian bass-baritone Eric Owens sang Sarastro’s “In diesen heil’gen Hallen,” whose German words translate to “Within these sacred portals revenge is unknown,” seemed fitting for the Knockdown Center, which felt like a spacious yet intimate community sanctuary.An audience of about 150, included some tickets reserved for emergency workers from Mount Sinai’s hospital in Queens, was allowed into the concerts.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesThe program continued with Blue and the choristers giving a serene account of “Placido è il mar” from Mozart’s “Idomeneo”; Blue and Costello in a duet from Verdi’s “La Traviata”; Blue and the chorus in the consoling “Laudate dominum” from Mozart’s “Vesperae Solennes de Confessore”; and, to end, Owens and the chorus in the affirming final scene of “Die Zauberflöte.”The Queens concerts were not the only demonstration on Sunday of the Met trying, in the face of continuing hardships from the pandemic, to keep its mission going. Typically, the finals of the company’s National Council Auditions attract a large, enthusiastic audience to the opera house, where 10 or so young finalists in this prestigious competition perform two arias each onstage, with the orchestra in the pit.This year the entire competition, which has been renamed for the Met donors Eric and Dominique Laffont, took place online. On Sunday, 10 impressive finalists performed live from various locations across the United States — as well as two from Seoul, where it was early in the morning. Rather than a full orchestra, each singer was accompanied by a pianist; not surprisingly, the quality of the transmissions varied, and assessing these young voices remotely hardly compared with hearing them at the house. I did not envy the judges.Raven McMillon, a soprano from Baltimore, was among the five winners of the Met’s annual young artists competition.via Metropolitan OperaStill, the five winners all came across as gifted singers with great potential: Emily Sierra, a mezzo-soprano from Chicago, who brought a rich, secure voice to arias from “Die Fledermaus” and “La Clemenza di Tito”; Raven McMillon, a soprano from Baltimore, who sang radiantly in selections from “Cendrillon” and “Der Rosenkavalier”; Duke Kim, a tenor from Seoul, who was excellent in Tamino’s aria from “Die Zauberflöte” and gleefully tossed off the nine high C’s of “Ah! mes ami” from “La Fille du Régiment”; Emily Treigle, a mezzo-soprano from New Orleans, who gave assured accounts of arias from “Orfeo ed Euridice” and “La Clemenza di Tito”; and Hyoyoung Kim, a coloratura soprano from Seoul, who seemed set for a big career singing from “Lakmé” and “Rigoletto.”The other, also worthy finalists were Brittany Olivia Logan (soprano), Erica Petrocelli (soprano), Timothy Murray (baritone), Murrella Parton (soprano) and Jongwon Han (bass-baritone).You couldn’t help but think that several of them will end up singing someday with the company at the Met’s theater. It was a prospect that made reopening the house an even more exciting and urgent matter. More

    • 150 Shares179 Views

      in Music

      How a Times Team Captured the Sound of a Harlem Gospel Choir

      by

      What does a socially distant gospel choir sound like? Here’s how Times journalists and technologists put users inside the sanctuary of a church in Harlem.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.In March 2020, one of the earliest coronavirus superspreader events in the United States occurred when a church choir in Washington State met for a rehearsal. Of the 61 singers who attended, 53 developed symptoms of Covid-19. Soon after, congregations around the country held what would be their last in-house services of the year.Tariro Mzezewa, a New York Times reporter, talked to churches recently to learn how they had adapted. “My favorite part of going to church as a kid was the music and the sense of community,” she said. “I wanted to know how the pandemic changed that.”Some churches had a soloist sing from home during live-streamed services. Others created small pods of a few singers that performed from an empty sanctuary. Some had choir members spread out in the pews or the balcony.Churches are built for their acoustics, so when Tariro told our Narrative Projects team about these socially distant choirs, we wondered: What does that sound like? Three months later, we’ve created a special feature to give you a feel for that sensory experience.As a visual editor at the Times, I work on innovative journalism, joining with colleagues to leverage new technologies like augmented reality, photogrammetry, 3-D modelingand visualization and volumetric video (moving 3-D images of real people, like a hologram). One of the best parts of my job is the thrill I get from trying new things.For the past year, we have been experimenting with a technology called environmental photogrammetry, with which we can build photorealistic 3-D models of a room or a neighborhood.We wanted to transport our readers into a church to hear the new sound of these choirs. With the help of Bethel Gospel Assembly in Harlem, we built a 3-D model of its sanctuary and embedded 3-D audio in it, something we’ve never done before for the Times website.Times journalists and technologists spent two days at the church in April. They used lasers and sensors to measure the size of the room and the distance between all the objects in it. They also took more than 7,000 photographs, many of them using a drone inside the sanctuary (with the church’s blessing) to capture images of the upper reaches of the balcony and ceiling. That data was combined using photogrammetry software to produce the 3-D model in this interactive article.With 31 microphones, two mixing boards and a sea of cables, our team recorded a live rehearsal with a small group of singers, a band and Bethel’s leader, Bishop Carlton T. Brown. Using binaural audio, which replicates the acoustics of the human ear, we created a 3-D audio experience meant to mimic what it sounds like in that room.“You really get a sense of the energy and how important the live part of making music is,” said Jon Cohrs, a technical producer on The Times’s research and development team and an audio engineer. In the two days he spent at Bethel, Jon witnessed the camaraderie and connection among choir members. “It’s really special, and you can see how impactful it is for everybody involved.”The music you hear in the opening of the interactive feature is captured from two microphones in the back of the church, as if you were sitting in the pews hearing the voices reverberate through the cavernous space. You can move through the space in the 3-D experience, and the sound changes as you get closer to the stage and fly over the instruments.Working on this project over the past few months, I’ve spent many minutes a day listening to the ethereal music we recorded, often with my eyes closed, my mind floating somewhere between my home office in Brooklyn and that sanctuary in Harlem.Our reporting affirmed why so many churches went to great lengths to bring music to their communities during times of hardship. Again and again, pastors, congregants and choir members told us that church without music was never an option. Music is healing, they said, and it brings people together in a shared spiritual and cultural experience, even when we have to be physically apart.As part of her research, Tariro attended an Easter Sunday service at Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem, which is now allowing a small number of parishioners to attend in person. “There was a real sense of people sighing in relief, like, ‘We made it,’” she said. “A year ago they didn’t know if they’d make it.” More

    • 125 Shares129 Views

      in Movies

      Gina Prince-Bythewood: Movies Won't Be the Same Without the ArcLight

      by

      For the director Gina Prince-Bythewood, seeing her movie premiere there or just a poster for it on display was a sign that her work mattered. News of the closure hit hard.As the rest of the film industry begins its tentative return to prepandemic normalcy, the announcement that Los Angeles’s ArcLight Cinemas, a chain that includes the Cinerama Dome, would close came as a shock to loyal moviegoers and filmmakers alike. Here, the director Gina Prince-Bythewood (“The Old Guard,” “Love & Basketball”) explains why the news was so devastating. These are edited excerpts.The ArcLight is a place for people who love movies. If you’re a filmmaker, if you love movies, you just appreciated everything that [the ArcLight] put into making it a curated moviegoing experience. They always had the films that we wanted to see, but they also had special screenings of movies that hadn’t been out for years, and a balance between big blockbusters and independent films. They made it an event. We never had to go anywhere else but the ArcLight — because you knew it was an experience every time, and you just didn’t want to cheat on your theater. There was no reason to go anywhere else.Ours was ArcLight Sherman Oaks, which was beautiful. The second you walk in, it’s about film. To the left was this very cool gift shop, which had film memorabilia and books, and then there would be the bar with mixed drinks but also great hot chocolate and coffee. There was a whole costume display from whichever film they were focused on, whether it be “Star Wars” or a period piece. [The concessions stand] was always packed because the food was really good — but there were tons of people working, so the lines moved fast.They had this entire wall of movie posters, and as a filmmaker, you’re always hoping that your poster would show up there. “Love & Basketball” premiered at the Cinerama Dome, and that was incredible to have my first film be at this iconic theater, with the red carpet and the excitement of it, and to see my film up on the marquee. My husband’s film, when he wrote “Get on the Bus,” also played there. To take a picture of the marquee, to have your movie poster be on rotation, it was exciting. And it made you feel like you’re working on something.Sanaa Lathan and Omar Epps in “Love & Basketball,” which had its premiere at the Cinerama Dome.New Line CinemaMy husband and I, when we were dating, would go to the movies once a week. Nobody else at the time had assigned seating. You know when you used to go to the theater, and you’d have to get there super early, searching for two spots, and you knew where you’d like to sit and those seats are never available because someone’s there already, and you’re — you know, “Excuse me, pardon me, excuse me”? Here, you picked your favorite seat, you walked in and you sat down. Once we had kids, all of us would go to the exact same seats every time: F25, 24, 23, 22. They allowed us to be near the end, but also to put our feet up on a metal bar right below us. And as you wait, they always have great trivia going up on the screen and movie music playing, and then the usher would come and the experience will begin.All the ushers and everybody who worked there clearly love movies: You could ask them which film they would recommend, and they would go into detail why they loved it. Right before the movie would start, an usher would come to the front of the theater and announce what movie you’re about to see, the running time, the rating and some little tidbit of information about the film. And it was always fun because there would be ushers who were completely shy, and it was probably horrifying for them that they have to do this; others would give these long explanations and you could tell that this was just their moment in the sun.When “Black Panther” came out, we got our seats that we loved two weeks in advance. We knew that it was going to be packed. And the audiences there, there’s just a love of film. So you just knew that you were going to have fun with the crowd as well, because people clap at the end of movies they love and cheer during trailers they’re hyped about. I loved seeing other families going for that same experience, and then being able to talk about it afterward in the lobby. You knew the people were there to see the movie and they respected the filmmaking.To hear that the ArcLight, of all theaters, was shutting down was a shock. It was kind of a blow to that fantasy that we were going to get back to where we were. Streaming has been great during this time, and it was incredible for “The Old Guard” to reach the global audience that it did. But I still love theaters. I love the collective experience of watching a film with people I don’t know who are all feeling the same things.I’m just staying optimistic that someone is going to step up and purchase the theaters. It’s too important to the industry; it’s too important to the audiences; the meaning of it is just too important for it to just go away. I have this fantasy that Netflix or Apple or George Clooney is just going to step up and save it, because it needs to be here. Oprah! We need Oprah. More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in Music

      Cultural Venues’ Quest for Billions in Federal Aid Is Halted by Glitch

      by

      On the first day nightclubs, movie theaters and other arts organizations hurt by the pandemic could apply for $16 billion in federal aid, the system malfunctioned. No applications got through. As the government prepared on Thursday to start taking applications for a $16 billion relief fund for music clubs, theaters and other live event businesses, thousands of desperate applicants waited eagerly to submit their paperwork right at noon, when the system was scheduled to open.And then they waited. And waited. Nearly four hours later, the system was still not working at all, sending applicants into spasms of anxiety.“This is an absolute disaster,” Eric Sosa, the owner of C’mon Everybody, a club in Brooklyn, tweeted at the agency. Shortly after 4 p.m., the Small Business Administration — which runs the initiative, the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program — abandoned its effort to salvage the broken system and shut down it down for the day. No applications were processed. “Technical issues arose despite multiple successful tests of the application process,” Andrea Roebker, an agency spokeswoman, said in a written statement. After discussions with the vendors that built the system, the agency decided “to shut down the portal to ensure fair and equal access once reopened, since this is first-come, first-serve,” Ms. Roebker said. “This decision was not made lightly as we understand the need to get relief quickly to this hard-hit industry.”In social media forums and Zoom calls, frustrated applicants vented and shared their anger. “It’s hard to keep hearing ‘help is on the way’ and then not be able to apply,” said Tom Weyman, the director of programing at the Columbus Theater in Providence, R.I. “I don’t think any of us thought the application process would be totally smooth, but this is life and death for our venues.” The meltdown echoed problems the agency had last year in taking applications for the Paycheck Protection Program, which it also oversees. When that program opened, the agency’s overwhelmed systems seized up — and the same thing happened again, weeks later, when a new round of funding became available. Applicants for the grant program were incredulous that the agency was not better prepared — especially because the funds are to be distributed based on the order in which people apply. Those who get their applications in early have the best chance of getting aid before the money runs out. “It pits venues against each other because we’re all mad-dashing for this,” Mr. Sosa, the Brooklyn club owner, said in an interview. “And it shouldn’t be that way. We’re all a community.” For businesses like Crowbar, a music club in Tampa, Fla., getting a grant is a matter of survival. Tom DeGeorge, Crowbar’s primary owner, took out more than $200,000 in personal loans to keep the business afloat after it shut down last year, including one using its liquor license as collateral.More than a year later, the club has reopened with a smattering of events at reduced capacities, but the business still operates in the red, Mr. DeGeorge said.“We lost an entire year of concerts in the blink of an eye, which was close to $1 million in revenue,” Mr. DeGeorge said. “That’s why we need this grant so badly.”The aid was authorized by Congress late last year after months of lobbying by an ad hoc coalition of music venues and other groups that warned of the loss of an entire sector of the arts economy.For music venues in particular, the last year has been a scramble to remain afloat, with the proprietors of local clubs running crowdfunding campaigns, selling T-shirts and racking their brains for any creative way to raise funds. For the holidays, the Subterranean club in Chicago, for example, agreed to place the names of patrons on its marquee for donations of $250 or more.“It’s been the busiest year,” Robert Gomez, the primary owner of Subterranean, said in an interview. “But it’s all been about, ‘Where am I going to get funding from?’”As it struggled to make ends meet, the Chicago club Subterranean decided to place the names of patrons on the club’s marquee for donations of $250 or more. Robert Gomez, its primary owner, said, the year has “all been about, ‘Where am I going to get funding from?’”Lyndon French for The New York TimesEven before Thursday’s fiasco, the opening of the shuttered venue program was riddled with complexity and confusion.The Small Business Administration posted a 58-page guide for applicants late Wednesday night, then quickly took it offline. A revised version of the guide was posted just minutes before the portal opened on Thursday. (An agency spokeswoman said the guide had to be updated to reflect “some last-minute system changes.”)And less than two hours before the agency was supposed to start accepting applications, its inspector general sent out an alert warning of “serious concerns” with the program’s waste and fraud controls. The Small Business Administration’s current audit plan “exposes billions of dollars to potential misuse of funds,” the inspector general wrote in a report. Successful applicants will receive a grant equal to 45 percent of their gross earned revenue from 2019, up to $10 million. Those who lost 90 percent of their revenue (compared to the prior year) after the coronavirus pandemic took hold will have a 14-day priority window for receiving the money, followed by another 14-day period for those who lost 70 percent or more. If any funds remain after that, they will then go to applicants who had a 25 percent sales loss in at least one quarter of 2020. Venues owned by large corporations, like Live Nation or AEG, are not eligible.The application process is extensive, with detailed questions about venues’ budgets, staff and equipment.“They want to make sure you’re not just setting up a piano in the corner of an Italian restaurant and calling yourself a music venue,” said Blayne Tucker, a lawyer for several music spaces in Texas.Technical glitches marred the beginning of the first day of submitting applications for the grant program. Empty chairs were seen in Crowbar.Zack Wittman for The New York TimesEven with the grants, music venues may be facing many dry months before touring and live events return at anything like prepandemic levels. The grant program also offers help for Broadway theaters, performing arts centers and even zoos, which share many of the same economic struggles.The Pablo Center at the Confluence, in Eau Claire, Wis., for example, was able to raise about $1 million from donations and grants during the pandemic, yet is still $1.2 million short on its annual fixed operating expenses, said Jason Jon Anderson, its executive director.“By the time we open again, October 2021 at the earliest, we will have been shuttered longer than we had been open,” he added. (The center opened in 2018, at a cost of $60 million.)The thousands of small clubs that dot the national concert map lack access to major donors and, in many cases, have been surviving on fumes for months.Stephen Chilton, the owner of the 300-capacity Rebel Lounge in Phoenix, said he had taken out “a few hundred thousand” in loans to keep the club afloat. In October, it reopened with a pop-up coffee shop inside, and the club hosts some events, like trivia contests and open mic shows.“We’re losing a lot less than we were losing when we were completely closed,” Mr. Chilton said, “but it’s not making up for the lost revenue from doing events.”The Rebel Lounge hopes that a grant will help it survive until it can bring back a full complement of concerts. And if its application is not successful?“There is no Plan B,” Mr. Chilton said. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Music

      Tanglewood Is Back This Summer, With Beethoven and Yo-Yo Ma

      by

      Closed last year, the Boston Symphony’s warm-weather home in the Berkshires will host an abbreviated six-week season.There won’t be the traditional, grand closing-night performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, with its stage full of singers. In fact, to reduce the risk of aerosol transmission of the coronavirus, there will be no vocal music at all at Tanglewood this summer.But there will still be a lot of Beethoven, along with crowd-pleasing tributes to the composer John Williams and familiar guests like Emanuel Ax, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Joshua Bell and Yo-Yo Ma.Tanglewood, the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s warm-weather home in the Berkshires, announced in March that after remaining closed last year because of the pandemic, it would open this summer for a six-week season — about half the usual length — with limited crowds and distancing requirements. On Thursday, the orchestra filled in the programming: heavy on appearances by its music director, Andris Nelsons, and with a focus on Beethoven, whose 250th birthday last year was muted because of widespread concert cancellations.Nelsons will lead eight orchestral programs, including a Beethoven opener on July 10 featuring the “Emperor” Piano Concerto, with Ax as soloist, and the Fifth Symphony. On July 23, the Boston Pops will honor Williams, who turns 90 next year and is the Pops’ laureate conductor; the following evening, Mutter gives the premiere of his Violin Concerto No. 2, and on Aug. 13 Williams shares the podium for a night of film music. On July 30, the violinist Leonidas Kavakos does Beethoven trios with Ax and Ma, who also plays with the Boston Symphony under Karina Canellakis on Aug. 8. (Details are available at bso.org.)Throughout the summer, performances will last no longer than 80 minutes, without intermissions, and all concerts will take place in the Koussevitzky Music Shed, which is open on the sides. The space, which usually holds thousands, will have a reduced capacity, as will the lawn that surrounds it — a favorite spot for picnicking. Tanglewood is waiting to announce what might go forward in late summer of its well-loved series of pop performers like James Taylor.Students at the Tanglewood Music Center, the orchestra’s prestigious summer academy, will play chamber concerts on Sunday mornings and Monday afternoons, and programs are planned for the Tanglewood Learning Institute, a series of lectures, talks and master classes that began with great fanfare in 2019. The orchestra will host a two-day version of its annual Festival of Contemporary Music, July 25-26.The Knights, a chamber orchestra, will be joined on July 9 by the jazz and classical pianist Aaron Diehl for Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” and selections from Mary Lou Williams’s “Zodiac Suite.” Among the Boston Symphony’s guest conductors will be Thomas Adès (the orchestra’s artistic partner), Alan Gilbert, Anna Rakitina and Herbert Blomstedt; soloists include the pianists Daniil Trifonov, Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Kirill Gerstein, and the violinists Baiba Skride and Lisa Batiashvili.The Tanglewood season is part of the nationwide thawing planned for this summer of a performing arts scene that has been largely frozen for over a year. The Public Theater has announced that its venerable Shakespeare in the Park will go forward, as will Santa Fe Opera and the Glimmerglass Festival in upstate New York. On Thursday, the Aspen Music Festival and School in Colorado said it would move forward with a nearly two-month season.But as they reopen, institutions are reckoning with sharp losses. As it celebrated the return of Tanglewood, the Boston Symphony said its current operating budget was $57.7 million, down from its prepandemic budget of over $100 million. The orchestra estimated that it has lost over $50 million in revenue in the last year. More

    • 100 Shares119 Views

      in Theater

      LA Stage Alliance Disbands After Awards Ceremony Blunder

      by

      The organization that runs the annual competition honoring theater work in Los Angeles imploded after it misidentified an Asian-American actor.Jully Lee, an actor and director, had a bad feeling about this year’s Ovation Awards, the annual competition honoring stage work in greater Los Angeles. She was a voter who had never been told when the ceremony would be, and she learned she was a nominee only when she was given 48 hours to submit a pretaped acceptance speech for use in the event that she won.She watched anyway.What she saw was not good. The awards ceremony, streamed online last week, showed a picture of a different Asian-American actress when announcing her category. And it mispronounced her name.Lee laughed, reflecting a lifetime of trying to be a good sport. But her boyfriend grabbed a screenshot, and posted it on social media, and he was not the only one.The reaction was swift, and furious, as long-simmering frustration over the functioning of the LA Stage Alliance, which administers the awards, combusted with the pain and anger of an Asian-American community devastated by a wave of anti-Asian violence.Forty-six theaters resigned from the alliance — about a third of its members. And on Monday, the organization, which for nearly a half-century had been the main coalition for a sprawling theatrical ecosystem in the nation’s second largest city, announced that it was disbanding.“It is with deep regret that the board of governors has unanimously decided to cease all operations,” the group said in a statement posted on social media.The rapid implosion was precipitated, most recently, by East West Players, the Asian-American theater that co-produced “Hannah and the Dread Gazebo,” the play in which Lee performed. (In another slight, the Ovation Awards attributed the production only to the Fountain Theater, saying it would not credit co-producers.)The morning after the ceremony, Snehal Desai, the producing artistic director for East West Players, announced that his theater was revoking its membership in the alliance, and urged others to do the same.“I felt like I needed to make a strong statement, because we were paying to be part of this organization that was diminishing us,” Desai said. “And I did call on other theaters to join us, because I wanted more than statements of support. Statements don’t do anything.”Many of the region’s theaters, which had been speaking up in support of diversity, equity and inclusion, first in response to the unrest over racial injustice last summer, and then again in response to hate crimes this spring, followed suit.“This was an inexcusable, terrible, unfortunate act, but it was also emblematic of a bigger failure of the LA Stage Alliance in the past few years,” said Danny Feldman, the producing artistic director at Pasadena Playhouse, who said the organization’s inadequacy had become more clear during the pandemic. “They lost the confidence of the community, and this was the tipping point.”The LA Stage Alliance was a nonprofit, dating back to 1975, that sought to support theater in Los Angeles. In addition to overseeing the Ovation Awards, it maintained onStage:LA, a website with listings and ticket discounts and published a digital arts magazine called @This Stage.Last summer the organization furloughed its staff; emails to the executive director, Marco Gomez, were answered by a publicist, Ken Werther, who said the leadership was declining to make any further comments.Lee, in an interview on Monday, said she was uncomfortable being seen as the face of the controversy, but also upset about the events that had transpired..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-yoay6m{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;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-yoay6m{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1pd7fgo{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-1pd7fgo{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-1pd7fgo:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1pd7fgo{border:none;padding:20px 0 0;border-top:1px solid #121212;}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 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:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“I was trying to be brave, and trying not to make it a big deal,” she said. “But then, reading all the posts — all the anger and pain that was being expressed — I had to acknowledge that this is angering and painful and hurtful. And there have been so many attempts to try and get the LA Stage Alliance to be more inclusive, and they’ve largely been ignored.”Deaf West Theater, the nation’s leading sign language theater, sought unsuccessfully to have this year’s Ovation ceremony interpreted for the deaf. “All of these oppressions go hand in hand,” said DJ Kurs, the theater’s artistic director. “We are all fighting the same fight, and we are fighting it together.”Los Angeles has a robust theater community that is often overshadowed by the city’s film and television industries, and includes not only a handful of big-budget nonprofits, but also a large number of small organizations, many of which were facing financial stress even before the pandemic.Throughout the pandemic, 65 of the “intimate theaters” have been meeting collectively as Alternative Theaters of Los Angeles to compare notes and support one another.Gary Grossman, an organizer of the group and the producing artistic director of Skylight Theater Company, called the collapse of the stage alliance “the right outcome.”“They have not represented the community,” he said. “It needs to be rethought from the ground up.”A variety of Los Angeles theater industry leaders interviewed Monday said the stage alliance was already in trouble financially before the latest conflagration, and its future had seemed uncertain throughout the pandemic.And several described a number of grievances with the organization, citing insufficient diversity in its leadership and programming, an ineffective response to the pandemic, high membership dues that made it harder for some theaters to participate, and a “pay to play” system in which theaters were supposed to pay a fee for each production they wanted considered for an award.“There’s been a fraught relationship from the perspective of most theater companies,” said Meghan Pressman, the managing director and chief executive at Center Theatre Group, which is the biggest of the Los Angeles nonprofits. Pressman said many theater administrators have already begun talking about what happens next.“I do think the community can come together to craft what we need in an organization,” she said. “And I don’t know if these awards will continue, but I feel strongly that some awards should, because it’s an important way to celebrate the theater community.” More