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- Good Morning.
Here are today’s AJ highlights.
Today’s stories share a mood of reckoning. The Philadelphia Museum of Art is being sued by its former director over her firing. In Washington, D.C., the National Opera contemplates leaving the Kennedy Center amid broken donor confidence. Hyperallergic exposes art schools as debt traps for a generation promised creative careers that rarely materialize, while LitHub warns that when we devalue art, we devalue the future. The critique echoes Harper’s, where writers argue that public distrust of media rose not from failure but from greater accuracy—a paradox of transparentcy values. ARTnews offers a counterpoint: creativity isn’t dying; monoculture is, and that’s liberation.
All of today’s stories below.
- Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra seeks President & Chief Executive Officer
Reporting to the Board of Directors, the President and Chief Executive Officer who will provide positive leadership and vision to ensure the Kalamazoo Symphony’s organizational, financial, and artistic success. They will be responsible and accountable for all aspects of the Orchestra’s operations, including strategic planning, budgeting and financial management, artistic administration and some program planning, contract negotiations and labor relations, marketing and public relations, fundraising, human resource management, education, and community engagement.
Additionally, the President & CEO will actively seek new opportunities for performances, partnerships, and collaborations throughout the community and region, creating innovative and engaging alternative concert formats and venues with the Music Director with the goal of welcoming, growing, and diversifying new audiences. They will also take a leadership role in fundraising, develop creative fundraising strategies, and provide guidance and impetus to the fundraising efforts of the Board. The President and Chief Executive Officer will ensure that the Kalamazoo Symphony realizes its vision, fulfills its mission, achieves its operational and budgetary goals, and fulfills its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Founded in 1921, the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra (KSO) recently celebrated 100 years as part of the Kalamazoo community’s rich musical heritage. The Orchestra’s mission is to serve the Kalamazoo community through outstanding musical listening and learning experiences. That mission is demonstrated as symphony musicians perform throughout the region in full orchestra and chamber concerts, in dynamic educational programming, in creative formats, and with many collaborative partners. Music Director Julian Kuerti, in partnership with the President & CEO, guides the artistic direction that underpins the Symphony’s main programming. The dedicated Board of Directors and the KSO staff work to maintain the Orchestra’s financial and administrative health. The donors and supporters—individuals, businesses, and the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra League—all help to make the Symphony a vibrant resource where the Kalamazoo community comes together to create shared musical experiences.
A bachelor’s degree or an equivalent combination of education and experience and at least seven years of arts management experience is preferred for this role. Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra will consider candidates with a broad range of backgrounds. If you are excited about this role and feel that you can contribute to KSO, but your experience does not exactly align with every qualification listed above, we encourage you to apply. All applications must be accompanied by a cover letter and résumé. Cover letters should be responsive to the mission of Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra and the responsibilities and qualifications specified in the position prospectus.
The salary range for this position is $140,000 to $160,000. Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra offers a comprehensive package of benefits, including generous paid vacation days, personal days and sick time, as well as health, vision, and dental insurance, 403(b) retirement plan with a 3% employer match, life insurance, and short and long-term disability insurance, and free parking downtown at the Epic Center parking garage.
Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra is committed to the inclusion of all qualified candidates. If you require reasonable accommodation in completing this application, interviewing, or participating in the selection process, please contact Jeanette Rivera-Watts at jeanetterw@aspenleadershipgroup.com.
To apply for this position, visit: https://apptrkr.com/6694736.
- How Journalism Media Lost The American Public
“I actually think that the decline of trust has to do with newspapers’ becoming more responsible, more accurate. Nobody I know would trade today’s newspaper for one from 1960.” – Harper’s
- Instant Translation Is Like Magic. But Might We Be Losing Something?
As people embrace these transformative tools, they risk eroding capacities and experiences that embody values other than seamlessness and efficiency. – The Atlantic
- The Crushing Debt Of Arts Schools
Art schools are marketed as gateways to success. However, the fine print tells a different story: crushing debt, unreliable outcomes, and a mismatch between what’s promised and what’s delivered. – Hyperallergic
- Expert Critics Look At This year’s Booker Finalists
Academic critics read closely this year’s Booker Prize finalists: Each novel has emotional temperature and structural ambition: domestic quietudes stretched into myth, migration histories turned intimate, masculinity stripped to bone, love sagas operating as cultural x-rays. A list that prizes atmosphere over spectacle. – The Conversation
- Enough With Those Claims Culture Has Become Less Creative. Look Around!
The Internet didn’t destroy monoculture. It exposed the fact that monoculture was always a bottleneck, popped the cork, and let the contents fizz out. – ARTnews
- Fired Philadelphia Art Museum Director Sues Over Her Dismissal
In her lawsuit, which was filed in Pennsylvania state court, the former director, Sasha Suda, contends that she was fired “without a valid basis” after negotiations over the terms of her departure with the museum’s board of trustees had reached an impasse. – The New York Times
- How To Build an Imagination: The Books Of Childhood
We learn from stories. Our ancestors were raised on myths about their ancestors, tales about their saviours, emperors and lawgivers, and, eventually, novels about any number of times and places, most of them named. – Equator
- Fighting The Algorithms: Tips For Discovering New Music
“For the past year and a half, I’ve been trying to figure out the easiest way to uncover new music. Not new releases, not new songs like the ones I already like, but music that’s new to me, by artists I haven’t encountered before.” – The New York Times
- Why Music Education Should Resist Conformity
We live in an age of unprecedented connectivity, and yet this very connectedness has led to something paradoxical: uniformity. In our quest to standardise, streamline, and compare ourselves globally, we risk erasing the very differences that make human creativity, and particularly music, so rich. – The Strad
- @100: Remembering Charles Mackerras’ Impact On English Musical Life
Mackerras had a major impact on British musical life, whether as Music Director of English National Opera and Welsh National Opera, working with major symphony orchestras, or conducting smaller groups such as the English Chamber Orchestra and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. – Gramophone
- Washington National Opera Considers Leaving The Kennedy Center
Leaving the Kennedy Center is a possible scenario after a collapse in box office revenue and “shattered” donor confidence in the wake of Trump’s takeover, said Francesca Zambello. – The Guardian
- The Trump Administration Keeps Using Norman Rockwell’s Imagery, And His Family Is Fed Up
“It’s important to us that younger generations know what the work stood for and don’t get some false impression from these decontextualized samplings — and we don’t want it to be associated with what the Department of Homeland Security is doing.” – Washington Post (MSN)
- It’s Actually Not So Hard To Make Your Movie Sets Accessible
And it benefits literally everyone, advocates say, including the audience. “If everyone feels like this is a safe set and they can do their best work, the work will just be better.” – Los Angeles Times (MSN)
- After Fifty Years In San Francisco, This Gallery Is Moving Out
The plan: Rena Bransten Gallery will turn into a pop-up. “I have uncertainty about whether the model that we all grew up in, going to galleries, is viable,” the gallery director says. “I need to really look around and see what people are doing.” – San Francisco Chronicle
- Iconoclast Art Guitar Maker Ken Parker Has Died At 73
“Parker leveraged his extensive experience in woodworking and guitar repair, along with his maverick streak, to build groundbreaking guitars that went on to be displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.” – The New York Times
- Filmmaker Yi Zhou Accuses Actor Jeremy Renner Of Unwanted Sexual Contact
Zhou accused Renner of sending unwanted sexual images, and of threatening “to call immigrationICE” to intimidate her. The actor denies the accusations. – Los Angeles Times (AOL)
- They Were Dancing ‘Nutcracker’ When An Earthquake Struck New Zealand
And they kept right on dancing. – Radio New Zealand
- When You Have A Multi-Set Show, You Need More Than A Director
Vince Gilligan of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, on his new series Pluribus: “The concept of the others being in sync telepathically led to us hiring our first-time choreographer, ever. Technically, I think he’s billed as a movement coordinator or a movement designer.” – Collider
- A Passionate Plea To Stop Devaluing Art, And The Future
“For years we’ve been grappling with the collapse of the creative middle class due to corporate greed. … We have more content than ever, but fewer opportunities for art and artists to thrive.” – LitHub
- A Christmas Carol, But Make It Contemporary Britain, And Also A Big Fun Musical
“Gurinder Chadha was wandering through the Charles Dickens Museum in London, trying to commune with the author’s spirit. ‘If you were alive today,’ the film-maker asked him, ‘what story would you tell?’” – The Guardian (UK)
- When Words, And Then Truth, And Then Reality, Fall Apart
“Navigating life in an era of ‘alternative truths’ has proved to be a disorienting experience: How can people live together when truth has become whatever one would like it to be?” – Le Monde (Archive Today)
- Alex Winters On Working With Keanu Reeves Again, This Time On Broadway
“A child actor turned movie star turned director and producer and prolific tech documentarian, Winter’s career has been fitful, searching and unconventional, full of sharp left turns and voracious curiosity.” – The Guardian (UK)
- Turns Out The Louvre Photo’s ‘Fedora Man’ Is A 15-Year-Old French Teen Who Loves To Dress Rather Nattily
The mysterious person “was cast as an old-school detective, an inside man, a Netflix pitch — or not human at all. … Pedro understood why. ‘In the photo, I’m dressed more in the 1940s, and we are in 2025,’ he said. ‘There is a contrast.’” – NPR
- Hey, If You’re Addicted To Technology, You Might Do Worse Than Looking At How Renaissance Nuns Lived
Or at least … that’s an idea? “Using the 17th-century nun Sor Juana as inspiration, [the authors] lay out five steps to writing an assertive, non-people-pleasing email.” – NPR
- Indigenous Artist Tania Willard Wins Canada’s Largest Contemporary Art Prize
The chair of the jury said, “She harvests berries to make ink drawings, harnesses wind and fire to compose poems and operas, and builds worlds with her BUSH Gallery collaborators. In the face of precarity, scarcity and conflict, her work offers a model of sustainability, abundance and connection.” – CBC
- Two Top BBC Officials Abruptly Quit Over Editing Of Documentary About January 6
The resignations “came several days after The Daily Telegraph published details of a leaked internal memo arguing that a BBC Panorama documentary had juxtaposed comments by Mr. Trump in a way that made it appear that he had explicitly encouraged the attack on the Capitol.” – The New York Times
- Apple TV Has A New, Colorful Logo, Created Fully By Hand In An Old-School Studio Way
The design team “gathered in a studio with a blacked-out stage, a giant glass version of the Apple TV logo, and a bevy of colorful studio lights.” – Fast Company (Archive Today)
- The National Exhibits That Took Years, Even Decades, To Plan, Are Shuttered And Empty
“At a time when the Trump administration is cutting arts funding and seeking to influence content at the Smithsonian, the shutdown, now the longest in the nation’s history, is adding further uncertainty to D.C.’s already rattled museums.” – Washington Post (MSN)
- Birmingham, England: The Next Hollywood?
Why not? After all, “the city was once synonymous with groundbreaking television.” – BBC
- The New York Times’s 10-Minute Painting Focus Challenge Is Changing Its Creators
“Buchanan said he had begun noticing subtle things in his own life, like how cracks zigzag across the sidewalk, or the way light hits the water, or the way a plant is squeezed against a rock.” – The New York Times
- Why US Companies Actually Might Want TikTok
The e-commerce wing is now as big as EBay, despite all of the news that the app would be banned. Think billions of dollars – in only two years of existence. – Wired
- All Roads Lead To Rome, But Make It A Digital Map
OK, cool, especially if you’re a Roman Empire kind of person: “Users can digitally explore nearly 300,000 kilometers of roads laid across the vast Roman Empire at its height in the mid-second century.” – Open Culture
- A Vision Of Mar-A-Lago On The Potomac Is Not, Exactly, The American Ideal
Or is it? “Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt, F.D.R., Kennedy, the list goes on: Many presidents have taken turns remodeling one or another part of the presidential grounds, often inciting political backlash.” – The New York Times
