Publisher leaves Now mag for NXNE
Now magazine publisher Michael Hollett is leaving the alternative newsweekly he co-founded 35 years ago to concentrate his energies on expanding the North by Northeast music festival.
Hollett, the president and managing director of NXNE, announced his resignation Thursday morning as editor and publisher of Now. Alice Klein, with whom he started the paper in 1981, will carry on in the lead role.
Hollett, meanwhile, will focus on rebuilding NXNE — which changed its format from a citywide club crawl to a more traditional, two-day festival centred in Toronto’s port lands last month — with increased support from his long-time silent partners at Austin’s massive South by Southwest festival. This year’s experiment went well enough that Hollett already has plans to expand the fest to two weekends in 2017.
“It’s important to keep grabbing new challenges, and I think right now in Toronto . . . there’s a real moment, kind of a perfect storm,” he said Thursday. “The Toronto music scene is exploding, there’s huge government and corporate and audience will on all levels to support things like North by Northeast, and I have these great partners at South by Southwest who really want to raise the stakes for me here in Toronto. That’s a really huge opportunity that I just can’t not take, I don’t think.
“Now has been magnificent. I still can’t imagine not doing it on some level . . . But you’ve gotta surprise yourself sometimes.”
Hollett does intend to keep a foot in journalism, although he couldn’t say whether he would contribute to Now in the future. Ben Rayner
Céline Dion has love for teen’s cover
Céline Dion has been overwhelmed by the power of an African teen’s viral cover.
Seventeen-year-old Samuel’s sen-
sational mostly French-language cover of Dion’s 1993 smash “The Power of Love” went viral after being shared by blogger Barack Nyare Mba.
Eventually, the clip reached Dion, who posted a bilingual Facebook message of congratulations to Samuel. “Samuel, your talent is as big as your voice,” she wrote.
“I’m touched my songs have travelled all the way to you and hope we have the chance to meet one day. May all your dreams come true. Keep singing like you do. “When music comes from the heart, it knows no borders!”
Samuel, who lives in Libreville, Gabon, sings the demanding tune beautifully in a cappella while sitting barefoot on a staircase.
Music producers are reportedly now circling Samuel, who has admitted that all the new-found attention is a little overwhelming.
“Where I live in Libreville, people recognize me on the street and want to say hello,” he told Mashable France in French. “I absolutely do not know how to handle it.” Nick Patch
Miranda a star in native Puerto Rico
Lin-Manuel Miranda jokingly compared himself to a hard-to-catch Pokemon as fans pursued him with cellphones on Wednesday during a visit to his parents’ native Puerto Rico, shortly after the end of his run in the Broadway hit Hamilton. Cheers broke out as Miranda promised to bring the show that won 11 Tony Awards to the U.S. territory, adding that he would like to turn it into a movie in the near future.
“I will be your Hamilton!” he said with a wide smile as he arrived in the town of Vega Alta, where he spent his childhood summers selling ice cream, eating avocados and enlisting neighbours to star in his skits.
Miranda credited his Puerto Rico roots for making him a writer, one who has earned a Pulitzer Prize for drama, a Grammy and the Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History.
“When you’re born in the United States, but your parents are from here, you always live a double life,” he said in Spanish. “And that’s a good way to be a writer. You’re always observing the differences between Puerto Rico and New York.”
Miranda was scheduled to receive several honours in Puerto Rico, including a star on the island’s Walk of Fame.