Music, Dance, and Visual Arts

Saudi Arabia Allows First Public Concert by a Woman

Lebanese singer Hiba Tawaji made history by becoming the first female musician to perform a public concert in Saudi Arabia. Thousands of young women attended the sold-out event on Wednesday, stripping off their abayas—the floor-length robes women in Saudi Arabia are obligated to wear in public—shaking out their hair and dancing to covers of songs […]

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Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts

Saudi crown prince bought $450 mn Da Vinci: report

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is the actual buyer of a painting by Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci that sold for a record-breaking $450 million at auction last month, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. The young and dynamic crown prince, known by his initials MBS, used an intermediary to buy the much-sought-after painting

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International, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts

The arts mean opportunity, former Klezmer musician Merryl Goldberg teaches at Cal State San Marcos

By Donald H. Harrison SAN MARCOS, California – Arts professor Merryl Goldberg of California State University at San Marcos declares that arts equal opportunity. She explains that the more that arts are incorporated into a child’s life, the better career prospects he or she will have as an adult. A former saxophonist with the Klezmer

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Donald H. Harrison, International, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County

Jerome Crowe, the FBI agent who delivered the ransom money in the Frank Sinatra Jr. kidnapping, dies at 93

LOS ANGELES — Jerome Crowe, a former L.A.-based FBI agent who delivered the ransom money in the Frank Sinatra Jr. kidnapping and led a SWAT team in the bloody SLA shootout, has died after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s disease. A lifelong law enforcement officer who is credited with assembling the FBI’s first SWAT team

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Obituaries & memorials, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, USA

‘French Elvis’ Johnny Hallyday dies aged 74

Veteran French rocker, Johnny Hallyday, who achieved iconic status during a career spanning over half-a-century, has died following a battle with lung cancer, his wife said Wednesday. He was 74. “Johnny Hallyday has left us. I write these words without believing them. But yet, it’s true. My man is no longer with us,” Laeticia Hallyday,

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International, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Obituaries & memorials

Met Opera suspends Levine after sex abuse allegations

New York’s Metropolitan Opera said Sunday it was suspending its famed longtime music director James Levine after multiple allegations of sexual misconduct. The premier US opera house said Levine would no longer appear at the Met this season and that it had hired a former US prosecutor to investigate the accusations. “Based on these new

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Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, USA

Ultra-Orthodox singer tapes eyes shut to avoid seeing women dancing in audience

By TOI staff An ultra-Orthodox singer caused a stir when he covered his eyes with masking tape in the middle of a concert in order not to see women who were dancing in front of the stage. Yonatan Razel was playing his keyboard and singing at Jerusalem’s International Conference Center on Sunday night when he

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Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts

Desperately seeking this Frida Kahlo painting. Last seen in Poland

After taking an overnight bus to Poznan in Poland for an exhibition on Mexican artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, two Portuguese sisters are now standing in front of a curious blue suggestion box. “Who can tell us what happened to the missing painting or where we can find it?” reads a sign next to

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International, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts

Mitch Margo, who rode ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ to the top of the charts, dies at 70

LOS ANGELES — Mitch Margo was just 14 when he and some Brooklyn pals recorded “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” a doo-wop version of a Zulu folk song that had been recorded dozens of times over the decades. But for the New York boy group, the song proved to be a powerful elixir as it climbed

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International, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, USA

As Culture Ministry tsks at nudity, Jerusalem’s Dance Week takes off

By Jessica Steinberg Machol Shalem, a Jerusalem dance center and host of the ongoing Jerusalem International Dance Week, will allow performances with nudity, but will make sure those troupes don’t receive any public funds. That was what the umbrella dance organization told the Ministry of Culture and Sport and the Jerusalem municipality, after the two

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Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

Music fans, fellow Jews lay George Fogelman to rest

By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO — Fellow Jews and fellow musicians joined forces on Wednesday, Nov. 27, to pay last tribute to George Alan Fogelman, 72, who died of cancer on Nov. 22 while under hospice care, leaving his wife Gail, two children, three grandchildren, nieces and nephews and many friends. Rabbis Joshua Dorsch

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Donald H. Harrison, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County

Roger Waters concerts pulled from German TV in light of his Israel boycott

Controversy over Roger Waters’ support for an anti-Israel movement has led to German television executives pulling the plug on plans to televise the former Pink Floyd frontman’s rock concerts, according to The Hollywood Reporter. As of now, five TV and radio stations in the country have opted out of airing Mr. Waters concerts next summer,

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Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts

Jon Hendricks, the ‘James Joyce of jazz,’ dies at 96

Jon Hendricks, the pioneering jazz singer and lyricist with the vocal ensemble Lambert, Hendricks & Ross who helped create an inventive jazz vocal technique called ‘vocalese,’ has died. Hendricks died Wednesday in New York City, his daughter, Aria Hendricks, said. He was 96. When Hendricks arrived on the jazz scene in the ’50s, his mastery

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Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Obituaries & memorials, USA