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Calder's Set For Socrate
The original ''Decor for Satie's "Socrate"'' was designed by mobile artist Alexander Calder for a touring performance of Erik Satie’s symphonic drama '' Socrate'' in 1936. It was a mobile set considered by Virgil Thomson as one of the masterpieces of twentieth-century theatre design. It consisted of three elements: a red disc, interlocking steel hoops, and a vertical rectangle, black on one side and white on the other, against a blue backdrop. Destroyed in a fire in 1936, the decor was recreated by Walter Hatke in 1976 for a performance in New York. Background “A sense of drama is evident in much of Calder’s work, and his predilection for strong color, movement and large scale led naturally to the theater,” wrote Jean Lipman in the Whitney Museum of American Art catalogue ''Calder’s Universe'' . One of Calder’s first stage commissions was the mobile decor made in February 1936 for a production of Erik Satie’s ''Socrate'' at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Calder
Alexander Calder (; July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976) was an American sculptor known both for his innovative mobiles (kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents) that embrace chance in their aesthetic, his static "stabiles", and his monumental public sculptures. Calder preferred not to analyze his work, saying, "Theories may be all very well for the artist himself, but they shouldn't be broadcast to other people." Early life Alexander "Sandy" Calder was born in 1898 in Lawnton, Pennsylvania. His birthdate remains a source of confusion. According to Calder's mother, Nanette (née Lederer), Calder was born on August 22, yet his birth certificate at Philadelphia City Hall, based on a hand-written ledger, stated July 22. When Calder's family learned of the birth certificate, they asserted with certainty that city officials had made a mistake. Calder's grandfather, sculptor Alexander Milne Calder, was born in Scotland, had immigrated to Philadelphia in 1868, and is best ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joel Thome
Joel Thome (born in Detroit, Michigan) is the conductor and artistic director of Orchestra of Our Time. A Grammy Award recipient, Thome has been acclaimed internationally as an accomplished conductor and composer of classical and contemporary orchestral music, as well as a strikingly effective conductor of opera and other music/theater works. His conducting credits include many prominent and international orchestras. He has worked with such noted artists as pianists Vladimir Feltsman and Lorin Hollander, violinist Jaime Laredo, Metropolitan Opera singers Florence Quivar and Roberta Alexander. His modern opera performances include the Weill/Brecht Threepenny Opera with the Opera Company of Boston and the Thomson/Stein Four Saints in Three Acts at Carnegie Hall. For thirteen years, Thome led the National Symphonic Orchestra of Mexico in concerts of classical and contemporary works. He has also conducted the Israel Chamber Orchestra, Group L'Itineraire in Paris, Brooklyn Ph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mobile (sculpture)
A mobile (,) is a type of kinetic sculpture constructed to take advantage of the principle of equilibrium. It consists of a number of rods, from which weighted objects or further rods hang. The objects hanging from the rods balance each other, so that the rods remain more or less horizontal. Each rod hangs from only one string, which gives it the freedom to rotate about the string. An ensemble of these balanced parts hang freely in space, by design without coming into contact with each other. Mobiles are popular in the nursery, where they hang over cribs to give infants entertainment and visual stimulation. Mobiles have inspired many composers, including Morton Feldman and Earle Brown who were inspired by Alexander Calder's mobiles to create mobile-like indeterminate pieces. John Cage wrote the music for the short film Works of Calder that focused on Calder's mobiles. Frank Zappa stated that his compositions employ a principle of balance similar to Calder mobiles. Origin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Erik Satie
Eric Alfred Leslie Satie (, ; ; 17 May 18661 July 1925), who signed his name Erik Satie after 1884, was a French composer and pianist. He was the son of a French father and a British mother. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, but was an undistinguished student and obtained no diploma. In the 1880s he worked as a pianist in café-cabaret in Montmartre, Paris, and began composing works, mostly for solo piano, such as his ''Gymnopédies'' and '' Gnossiennes''. He also wrote music for a Rosicrucian sect to which he was briefly attached. After a spell in which he composed little, Satie entered Paris's second music academy, the Schola Cantorum, as a mature student. His studies there were more successful than those at the Conservatoire. From about 1910 he became the focus of successive groups of young composers attracted by his unconventionality and originality. Among them were the group known as Les Six. A meeting with Jean Cocteau in 1915 led to the creation of the ballet '' Par ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Socrate
''Socrate'' is a work for voice and piano (or small orchestra) by Erik Satie. First published in 1919 for voice and piano, in 1920 a different publisher reissued the piece "revised and corrected". Wolfgang Rathert and Andreas Traub, "Zu einer bislang unbekannten Ausgabe des 'Socrate' von Erik Satie", in ''Die Musikforschung'', Jg. 38 (1985), booklet 2, . A third version of the work exists, for small orchestra and voice, for which the manuscript has disappeared and which is available now only in print. The text is composed of excerpts of Victor Cousin's translation of Plato's dialogues, all of the chosen texts referring to Socrates. Commission – composition The work was commissioned by Princess Edmond de Polignac in October 1916. The Princess had specified that female voices should be used: originally the idea had been that Satie would write incidental music to a performance where the Princess and/or some of her (female) friends would read aloud texts of the ancient Greek phi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virgil Thomson
Virgil Thomson (November 25, 1896 – September 30, 1989) was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music. He has been described as a modernist, a neoromantic, a neoclassicist, and a composer of "an Olympian blend of humanity and detachment" whose "expressive voice was always carefully muted" until his late opera ''Lord Byron'' which, in contrast to all his previous work, exhibited an emotional content that rises to "moments of real passion". Biography Early years Thomson was born in Kansas City, Missouri. As a child he befriended Alice Smith, great-granddaughter of Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter-day Saint movement. During his youth he often played the organ in Grace Church, (now Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral), as his piano teacher was the church's organist. After World War I, he entered Harvard University thanks to a loan from Dr. Fred M. Smith, the president of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Chr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean Lipman
Jean Herzberg Lipman (1909 – June 20, 1998) was an American artist, collector, and art historian, a pioneer in the study of American folk art. Biography A native of Manhattan, where she was born Jean Herzberg, Lipman grew up in Midtown before receiving her BA from Wellesley College and her MA in art history from New York University, taking as the topic of her master's thesis a collection of profile portraits from Florence. She was married to Howard Lipman, an investment banker and sculptor, who shared her interests. She began collecting folk art in 1936 with the goal of furnishing a home in Connecticut. In 1938 she became an associate editor of ''Art in America'', moving to the position of editor two years later; she remained in this post until 1971, when she moved to the Whitney Museum of American Art to become director of publications. ''Art in America'' was devoted to the entire history of American art, but Lipman took especial care to introduce American folk art to its pages ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Whitney Museum Of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), a wealthy and prominent American socialite, sculptor, and art patron after whom it is named. The Whitney focuses on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Its permanent collection, spanning the late-19th century to the present, comprises more than 25,000 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, films, videos, and artifacts of new media by more than 3,500 artists. It places particular emphasis on exhibiting the work of living artists as well as maintaining an extensive permanent collection of important pieces from the first half of the last century. The museum's Annual and Biennial exhibitions have long been a venue for younger and lesser-known artists whose work is showcased there. From 1966 to 2014, the Whitney was at 945 Mad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Friends And Enemies Of Modern Music
''Friends'' is an American television sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, which aired on NBC from September 22, 1994, to May 6, 2004, lasting ten seasons. With an ensemble cast starring Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer, the show revolves around six friends in their 20s and 30s who live in Manhattan, New York City. The series was produced by Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions, in association with Warner Bros. Television. The original executive producers were Kevin S. Bright, Kauffman, and Crane. Kauffman and Crane began developing ''Friends'' under the working title ''Insomnia Cafe'' between November and December 1993. They presented the idea to Bright, and together they pitched a seven-page treatment of the show to NBC. After several script rewrites and changes, including title changes to ''Six of One'' and ''Friends Like Us'', the series was finally named ''Friends''. Filming took place at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Painter's Object
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with nouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant sound, and as (homophone of the archaic pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cyclorama
A cyclorama is a panoramic image on the inside of a cylindrical platform, designed to give viewers standing in the middle of the cylinder a 360° view, and also a building designed to show a panoramic image. The intended effect is to make viewers, surrounded by the panoramic image, feel as if they were standing in the midst of the place depicted in the image. Background Panoramas were invented by Irish painter Robert Barker, who wanted to find a way to capture the panoramic view from Calton Hill in central Edinburgh, Scotland. He subsequently opened his first cyclorama building in Edinburgh in 1787. Cycloramas were very popular in the late 19th century. The most popular traveled from city to city to provide local entertainment – much like a modern movie. As the viewers stood in the center of the painting, there would often be music and a narrator telling the story of the event depicted. Sometimes dioramas were constructed in the foreground to provide additional realism ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beacon Theatre (New York City)
The Beacon Theatre is an entertainment venue at 2124 Broadway, adjacent to the Hotel Beacon, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1929, the Beacon Theatre was developed by Samuel "Roxy" Rothafel and built as a movie palace, with 2,894 seats across three levels. It was designed by Walter W. Ahlschlager with decorations inspired by the Renaissance, Ancient Roman, Ancient Greek, and Rococo styles. The theater is designated as a New York City interior landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The facade is relatively plain and is made of brick and stone, with a marquee above its entrance on Broadway. The outdoor ticket booth leads to a vestibule and a multi-story rotunda lobby under the hotel, with a mural by Danish artist Valdemar Kjoldgaard in the lobby. The auditorium is in an adjacent structure on the eastern part of the site, near 75th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. The auditorium's side walls have ornate arched doo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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