Automakers Protecting Art.   Rarely do I get the opportunity to talk about two of my favorite things at once: the Arts and Cars, so forgive me, but I had to highlight this story.  General Motors, Ford and Chrysler have announced that they are pledging $26 million to Detroit’s bankruptcy reorganization to help support retiree pensions in an effort to keep city-owned art pieces at the Detroit Art Museum and off the auction block.  In exchange for the pension funding, the museum and its assets will be transferred to a private nonprofit.  About 2,800 city-owned artworks have been valued at between $454 million and $867 million.   Creditors want the city to sell off what it owns in the art museum in order to pay some of the city’s massive debt.

Creating a Welcoming Space for Autistic Children.  The Victorian Opera is creating a special production of Hansel and Gretel aimed at creating a comfortable environment for children with Down syndrome and autism.  During the performance, the lights will be kept on low rather than completely dimmed, the sound levels will be turned down, and children will be able to move around the theater during the performance.  Additionally, all of the performers will introduce themselves at the beginning of their characters and none will wear makeup in an effort to help the children distinguish between what is real and what is being performed.  The production is the first in a disability access pilot program devised by the Arts Centre in partnership with Arts Access Victoria.  According to the Autism Science Foundation, music not only encourages social interactions among autistic children, but also can improve behavior and communication.  What a fantastic idea to apply this concept to a live operatic performance!

The Case for Connoisseurship.  Art historian Bendor Grosvenor wrote a very poignant piece in The Art Newspaper entitled “The Case for Old-Fashioned Connoisseurship.”  In the piece, Grosvenor encourages people to “stop being so anxious about the term connoisseurship” because it has nothing to do with “class, taste or gender” and instead is “simply about closely observing objects until you can recognise certain features about them.”   Grosvenor also argues that this basic process can help us learn so much more than who “painted what when,” but that it is paramount to get that right first because if we don’t then everything else falls apart.  The article discusses how the explosion of online art collections has democratized art in an unprecedented way.  One in five of the works on Your Paintings (on the website of the Public Catalogue Foundation) has an uncertain or no attribution – meaning there is a need to find out more about these “unknown” works.  The Public Catalogue Foundation has created Art Detective – that invites the public and a network of enthusiastic experts to help identify these art historical orphans. This is the world’s first professionally created art historical crowd-sourcing project.   Gorsvenor argues that this is modern connoisseurship in action and should be embraced.  I agree.  We can all benefit from a little connoisseurship: scrutinizing a score, refining technique, and training ears.  No matter how instantaneous technology makes experiences, the old adage “practice makes perfect” will always ring true.

Music on the Go.  The Huffington Post recently did a great write-up of the top 5 music apps for offline listening.  While I have personally been a Pandora fan for a while, I am very excited about the new Bloom.FM.  Bloom.FM is a radio and music discovery app that enables users to stream full tracks and playlists and then save the tracks to their phone.  Then, users can actually listen to the songs offline – a perfect app for someone who travels frequently.  Unfortunately, this app is not yet available for the US, only the UK.  Other apps mentioned in the article include Groove (a lot like Apple’s Genius function), Spotify, Swarm,fm (a spotify-based app),  and Tunigo (allows you to find, play and sync playlists from within the app).