Music Playlists
Today's recommending listening is jazz pianist Tigran Hamasyan, electronica Lava Lounge by Suchitra Lata, The Book of Life soundtrack, and Latin music by Elvis Crespo.
Get a free Glendale Library, Arts & Culture Library eCard instantaneously. It can be used to access our online resources including eBooks, eAudiobooks, eNewspapers, eMagazines, online classes, online tutoring, and learning games, as well as streaming movies and music, and more.Try listening to a streaming Playlist from Freegal Music, Naxos Music Library, Naxos Jazz Music Library, Hoopla or Alexander Street free with your library card. Alexander Street will ask for an academic institution, use Glendale Public Library.
Read Music
Are you interested in seeing new scores by contemporary composers? Brand has new scores by composers such as John Adams, Thomas Ades, Jennifer Higdon, Mason Bates, Judith Weir, Bright Sheng, Arvo Part and more. You can place holds in the library catalog and request to pickup at Glendale Central Library.
Learn About Music
There are quite a few guitar and piano instruction eBooks on Hoopla that you can check out with your Glendale library card. Including music publishers such as Musician’s Institute, Berklee Press, Hal Leonard and more.
Streaming Music
The Clickable Chamber Music Newsletter for Southern California is issued weekly and contains a schedule of virtual and live chamber music concerts in Southern California. You can receive the schedule via email or posted on the web site.
Museum of Making Music has virtual events and concerts at MoMM@Home on Fridays at 2pm. The museum is in Carlsbad, CA and is a division of the National Association of Music Merchants Foundation. They cover a wide variety of music, industry topics and instruments.
Art Online
ReflectSpace gallery presents a multi-dimensional reflection on the bitter history and contemporary legacy of the displacement of the Mexican-American communities of Chavez Ravine, now the site of Dodger Stadium. Historical and archival material stand alongside work by contemporary artists that address issues of government-supported dispossession and violence against black and brown bodies that continue unabated today.
dispLAced: Communities Beneath Dodger Stadium is on view from September 24 - December 31, 2020 in a 3D virtual gallery.
The Latinx Arts Alliance offers links to virtual exhibits celebrating Latinx art, artists and culture in greater Los Angeles. Start with an exhibit from Self Help Graphics and Art, The Very Very Very Long Day, a documentation of many issues currently at the forefront, but also honoring the human spirit, people’s perseverance, and to some extent, determination to create new normalcy to avoid breaking.
Christen Carter, originally a casual collector, is responsible for the world’s only museum dedicated to buttons, housed in the Chicago-based manufacturer Busy Beaver Button Co. The institution currently boasts more than 40,000 buttons and is accepting donations. A virtual archive of about 9,000 is available to scroll through on its site.
Art Inspiration - Try It at Home
Plaza de la Raza Cultural Center for the Arts & Education is a multidisciplinary community arts venue. They offer classes on their YouTube channel by local artists and performers in theater, dance, music, and the visual arts. Try a papermaking class by Andrew Cervantes teacher of art and ceramics or Piñatita making with America Madrigal-Herrera.
At-Home with National Museum of Mexican Art is sharing activities to keep families entertained. From coloring pages, games, and puzzles to making Papel Picado they have a wealth of resources. Spend some time exploring virtual exhibits and collections including Sólo un poco aquí: Day of the Dead.
Grants for the Arts
Non-profit arts and/or culture organization in Glendale may be eligible to receive up to $15,000 in the Support the Arts Grant Program! The program offers grants to non-profit, Glendale-based arts and/or culture organizations for capital that can be used for day-to-day operating expenses.
Staff e-Recommendations
I read the book, Caravaggio: Painter of Miracles by Francine Prose, with mystified and curious thoughts about how this brilliant artist of the Baroque era could have been so misunderstood and at times vilified for the contradictions in his personality and choice of provocative subject matter in his paintings. Caravaggio began his apprenticeship in painting at age 13 with a former pupil of Titian, named Simone Peterzano in Milan. He broke conventions and illustrated the very human and imperfect nature of the foibles of mankind, the everyday person. In Caravaggio’s turbulent personal life there are only second-hand stories of his thoughts and struggles to maintain an ordinary artist’s life in a major cultural center of Europe. He never kept a diary but was such an intriguing figure that there were contemporary biographers who saw his brilliance and were also jealous and dismissive in their commentary on his life. This book explains how Caravaggio was “the closest thing we have to the myth of the sinner-saint, the street tough, the martyr, the killer, the genius.” His life took a very steep rise with fame and adoration for his talents followed by multiple bouts with bad trouble and despair due to many circumstances. Caravaggio died at a young age after being exiled and attempting to return to Rome, but a group of his late paintings survived. I would recommend this book as a fascinating read about a brilliant and conflicted artist of the Baroque era. -CV
Los Tigres del Norte at Folsom Prison (2019). The immensely popular band Los Tigres del Norte performed at Folsom Prison on the 50th anniversary of Johnny Cash’s famous 1968 performance. Their goal was the same as Johnny Cash’s—to remind the inmates they were not forgotten. The band was the first Latin group to perform at the prison. The band has had an incredible career; Los Tigres recorded 55 albums and sold more than 30 million copies. The Folsom Prison population changed significantly since 1968; it is now 43% Latino and has 400 female inmates (there were no female prisoners at Folsom in 1968). The band is sympathetic and nonjudgmental to those in communities without a voice. They often sing about scattered families, drug runners, illegal immigration and the struggle to survive. The concert was both appropriate and historically significant. The album was made with support of Johnny’s son John Carter Cash. John Carter’s wife Ana Cristina translated Folsom Prison Blues into Spanish in collaboration with the band. I’m sure if Johnny Cash were alive today he would also heartily approve. You can login to Hoopla with your library card to listen to the album. Also read and listen to this article and interview on NPR by Felix Contreras. -BW
Covid-19 Resources
Reliable information about the coronavirus (COVID-19) is available from the World Health Organization, the California Department of Public Health, the Los Angeles County Public Health Department, the City of Glendale, and the Library, Arts & Culture department.
Resources for Music Businesses And Industry Workers, Playing for Change, Sounding Point LA
Resources for Freelance Artists, California Arts Council, Americans for the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts
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