By Mitchell We know from Parson Weems that young George Washington chopped down a cherry tree and, when confronted by the fact, bravely said to his father, “I cannot tell a lie.� History does not tell us what happened to the unfortunate piece of wood that young George cut down, but of this we ca...

It’s been a busy week. Hard to believe it’s Friday already. Time to look at a few interesting bits on arts marketing and social media that you might have missed. ON TWITTER Listening to Twitter – In this TED talk, twitter co-founder Evan Williams notes how the use of twitter has evolved in une...

So I spent the weekend immersing myself in cultural activities of various kind. Yesterday, while stuck at home trying to recover from the annoying cold that just doesn't seem to go away, I made it an Italian Day. I turned on my beloved Andrea Bocelli CDs, (yes, he's a fellow lawyer!), while eating I...

It's amazingly easy to disembowel a grand piano. With little more than a flick of his wrists, the blocks are removed from either end of the keyboard and the entire intestinal mechanism - keys and the hammers they are attached to - comes neatly away. I'm watching this happen on stage at London's Barb...

Watching Hull City fire two goals past the normally impenetrable Arsenal at the start of the season, I was reminded of another extraordinary performance. It, too, was an away fixture of sorts: after a run-of-the-mill first half, the players emerged after the break with new-found vigour and stepped u...

There was a piece in the New York Times yesterday about the Metropolitan Opera movie theater broadcasts and the small, but inevitable, backlash. You know something has really arrived when there’s a backlash. It sounds to me like there are two unhappy camps: 1. people who think the Met broadcasts e...

One of the problems I have with writing this blog is the tendency to be sort of scold-y and preachy. My thoughts on arts marketing strategies and tools are often prompted by efforts that seem misguided to me. It’s hard to talk about these issues without sounding all superior. There must be times w...

The tragicomic life of Anna Nicole Smith, the glamour model who famously married a stupendously wealthy tycoon 63 years her senior, may seem a more likely subject for prurient farce than grand opera. But, according to the Royal Opera House, it is perfect fare for transformation into a piece of lyric...

The violinist Anne Akiko Meyers could hardly have done a better job of adapting her usual working mode to fit the brief, casual concert she presented on Tuesday at Le Poisson Rouge....

By BobbyOver the years, I've read commentaries by Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President R. Albert Mohler, Jr., of Louisville, KY. about morality, theology, and even music. A commentary made a few years ago on music came back to me today in light of a few incidents. (Note that the South Car...