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- Klaus Makela Again
I wasn’t initially planning to write anything about Wednesday night’s Carnegie Hall concert by the Chicago Symphony under Klaus Makela, their 30-year-old impending music director. I’ve written about Makela quite enough. I have no doubt that he is immensely gifted. I have seen him ignite an orchestra with a rare
- Good Morning
Netflix drops out of the competition to buy Warner, saying Paramount’s offer was too rich (NYT). Hard to be happy for either of these bidders as the sale will further concentrate ownership of the media landscape.
BBC Radio 3 has dropped Norman Lebrecht after pianist Yuja Wang made public a message from him she described as misogynistic bullying (The Guardian). Lebrecht — widely read and perpetually controversial — has hosted interview programs on the network for years. The Guardian has the note — you be the judge.
In Los Angeles, allegations have surfaced that muralist Judy Baca personally profited from a $5 million Mellon Foundation grant intended to expand “The Great Wall,” blurring the line between her nonprofit and for-profit endeavors (Los Angeles Times).
Nova Scotia announced what the arts sector there is calling unprecedented budget cuts — closing nearly half of all provincial museum sites and eliminating funding that put artists in schools (Halifax Examiner).
Ann Godoff, who founded Penguin Press and built one of the most formidable author lists in publishing, has died at 76. When she was fired from Random House in a corporate restructuring, more than two dozen writers followed her out the door eight days later (The New York Times). And a Dutch woman who finally got around to opening a family safe during COVID lockdowns found 35 authenticated Rembrandt etchings inside (ARTnews). Lockdown productivity we can all admire.
All of our stories below.
- Netflix Backs Out Of Offer For Warner; Paramount Wins
Netflix said that it would not raise its offer to counter a higher bid made earlier this week by Mr. Ellison’s company, Paramount Skydance, saying in a statement that “the deal is no longer financially attractive.” – The New York Times
- BBC Radio 3 Fires Norman Lebrecht Over Email To Yuja Wang
The broadcaster’s decision to end its long relationship with Lebrecht — the widely-read, controversial critic and blogger who has hosted several interview programs on Radio 3 over the years — comes after Wang made public a message from Lebrecht which she described as “derogatory misogynistic bullying.” – The Guardian
- Cappella Romana Founder Alexander Lingas Steps Down After 35 Years
In the decades since its founding concerts, the Portland-based professional vocal ensemble has gone on to become the premier exponent and explorer of the musical traditions of Byzantium and other early Christian music, and Lingas one of its leading scholars. – Oregon Arts Watch
- How Awards Have Defined The Canadian Music Industry
National arts award ceremonies like the Junos are part of a cultural system that help define who belongs, who succeeds and what counts as “Canadian” in the first place. – The Conversation
- 35 Rembrandt Etchings Rediscovered After A Century In A Safe
Charlotte Meyer’s grandfather, who had a sharp eye, picked them up inexpensively back when etchings weren’t highly valued, and they remained in her family’s safe for decades. When she had time during the COVID lockdowns, she found the works and later took them to the nearby Rembrandt House in Amsterdam, where they were authenticated. – ARTnews
- A Rebirth In Critic-ing?
If the review sections of newspapers are closing down, there’s a sense that this moment could make room for a meatier, weirder kind of criticism. – Columbia Journalism Review
- Cellist Steven Isserlis On Composer György Kurtág, Now Aged 100
“Playing to him is transformative in every way. His imagination is boundless; he will produce startling, unexpected images – or point out connections, musical or extramusical – that illuminate his meaning.” – The Guardian
- LA’s New Golden Age Of Museums
This shift to the West Coast has long been driven by the region’s many art schools, including the ArtCenter, California Institute of the Arts, Otis College of Art and Design and the art department at the University of California, Los Angeles. – The Art Newspaper
- London’s Globe Theatre Launches “Environmental Playwright” Prize
It is this connection with the bard’s work that has inspired Shakespeare’s Globe to launch its first climate playwriting prize for 2026, which it says will harness the skills of storytellers and artists to “inspire societal shifts towards a restorative relationship with nature”. – The Guardian
- Study: Gen Z’s View Of Masculinity Is Changing
The study surveyed 1,500 tweens, teens and young adults, ages 10-24, finding that these groups want to see boys and men on TV and in movies “moving away from isolation and other masculine stereotypes” and “towards vulnerability and connection.” – The Hollywood Reporter
- A Reporter Starts A “Book Club” For Newspaper Articles
At a St. Petersburg bookstore, Lauren Peace, an enterprise equity reporter at the Tampa Bay Times, moderates conversations about a selected story among its author and community members. The idea is not just to discuss the story’s substance, but to give readers a behind-the-scenes look at the reporting process and decision-making. – Nieman Lab
- The Existential Challenges Facing Disney’s New CEO
There’s a phrase that’s used around the Magic Kingdom to describe this phenomenon: “the Josh Effect.” D’Amaro — tall, slender and silver-haired — has a politician’s ability to make anyone he encounters feel seen and heard. – Variety
- The Qualities Of Ethics Required For Good Government
In a world increasingly defined by distance, between citizen and state, between policy and experience, between law and justice, Rammohun Roy offers a reminder that good government is not only a matter of laws or statistics. It is a matter of presence. – Aeon
- Did This LA Arts Icon Personally Profit From Foundation Grants?
They allege Judy Baca personally benefited from a $5-million Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant to expand “The Great Wall,” sold the project’s archives to the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art at a large profit to herself, and has blurred the line between her nonprofit and for-profit endeavors. – Los Angeles Times
- Just Because . . .<a href="https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/2026/02/just-because.html" title="Just Because . . .” rel=”nofollow”>
Trumpscheisse has repeatedly threatened to revoke Rosie O’Donnell’s U.S. citizenship (pairing her with Robert De Niro), the staff thought this worth posting. - Should Young Girls Really Have To Wear Makeup For Dance Class? Or Even Competitions?
“The question of whether children should be encouraged to break out the grease paint has been pressing on parents and dance teachers alike. … Many are wondering whether it’s really appropriate to encourage preteens to master winged eyeliner before they’ve earned their pen licence.” Other teachers, however, have their reasons for requiring it. – The Guardian
- Misty Copeland Recovering From Hip Replacement Surgery
“A few months ago, I stepped off the stage after my final bow with @abtofficial, closing one chapter and unknowingly preparing for the next,” she wrote. “Not too long after that, I had hip replacement surgery.” – The Cut
- Why Daniel Radcliffe Is Doing An Audience-Participation Play — Gladly, No Less — On Broadway
“The audience interaction is central to Every Brilliant Thing, … about a man processing his mother’s attempted suicide and his own depression. … It’s an exciting prospect, (Radcliffe) tells me, in large part because the play’s dependence on audience volunteers gives him a way to shed his sense of being a big name.” – Vulture (MSN)
- Podcasts Have Now Have More Listeners In The U.S. Than Talk Radio
“Podcasts have officially overtaken AM/FM talk radio as the more popular medium for spoken-word audio in the United States, according to Edison Research’s Share of Ear survey.” – TechCrunch
- Ann Godoff, Founder Of Penguin Press And Legendary Editor, Has Died At 76
After a dozen years as Random House, where she was executive editor and then editor-in-chief/publisher, she was fired in a corporate restructuring. When she launched Penguin Press eight days later, more than two dozen writers went with her. The list of prominent authors she has shepherded is astonishing. – The New York Times
- Nova Scotia’s Arts Sector Hit Hard By “Unprecedented” Provincial Budget Cuts
“Nearly half of all Nova Scotia Museum sites closed. The elimination of a fund supporting local publishers. A 100% cut to funding for programs that put writers and artists in schools. Nova Scotia’s arts and culture sector was hit hard by cuts announced (late) yesterday by the provincial government.” – Halifax Examiner
- As The Bidding War For It Began, Warner Bros. Discovery Lost A Quarter-Billion Dollars
In the last quarter of 2025, as Netflix and Paramount Skydance began their attempts to buy it, WBD lost $252 million. Overall revenue was down 6% from the fourth quarter last year; that figure ought to satisfy Wall Street’s expectations, but an unprofitable company is generally not considered a good thing. – The Hollywood Reporter
- Paris’s Other Wildly Popular Museum, The Musée d’Orsay, Also Has A New Director
The home of the city’s collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works will be led by 57-year-old Annick Lemoine, currently director of the Petit Palais. She succeeds Sylvain Amic, who died suddenly in August 2025.” – Le Monde (in English)
- Refresher: What To Know About The Louvre As It Changes Directors And Navigates Crises
Why the resignation of director Laurence des Cars hit so hard, the background of new director Christophe Leribault, the long list of problems which the world’s busiest museum is facing, and why President Macron is unusually invested in all this. – AP
- Short and Sweet: Teachers : Educators :: Arts Organizations : Nonprofit Arts Organizations That Deserve DonationsBack to the basics, because the message is only going so far. It’s up to you to save the sector from its own worst instincts.
- Is This, Scientifically, The Best Way To Learn A New Language?
A correspondent tries a method designed by professors of cognition to mirror language-learning in the real world. The tasks basically simulate how we would cope if dropped into a foreign country with an unknown language, simply using our innate skills to start making sense of the mysterious sounds made by everyone around us. – BBC
- How One Dance Spread An Indigenous Movement Across The American West
On New Year’s Day 1889, a young Paiute man named Wovoka had a vision in which God taught him a ceremony. The Ghost Dance blended traditional teachings, earlier ritual dances, and Christian theology, promising peace and reunion with the dead, and it spread like brushfire through the Great Basin and Plains. – National Geographic
- Just What/Where Is The Leisure Class?
We need to work, because survival demands it, and we need to rest, because work is tiring, but are those two possibilities really exhaustive? – Liberties Journal
- AMC Says It Will Continue To Close Movie Theatres
For the company’s Q4 2025, which ended on December 31, AMC reported total revenue of $1.28 billion. That’s a drop of 1.4% from the $1.3 billion the company reported for the same quarter a year earlier. – Fast Company
- How Instrumentalization Devalues The Meaning Of Art
It is no longer enough for universities to say that their programmes allow you to explore some of the most fundamental questions of existence. Now the questions are of a decidedly more bottom-line sort: how will philosophy help you buy a house or build your pension pot? – Aeon
- Composer Éliane Radigue, Pioneer Of Musique Concrète And Drone Music, Has Died At 94
While on a guest residency at NYU, she discovered the ARP 2500 synthesizer, which would be her tool for three decades before she turned to acoustic composition in the 2000s. As one colleague put it, she “taught us the radical power of slowness, of patience, and attention stretched to the threshold of perception.” – Pitchfork
- Republican Attorneys General Oppose Netflix Warner Deal
“We, the undersigned Attorneys General, write to express our concerns that the proposed merger between Netflix and Warner Brothers will likely result in undue market concentration that stifles competition and therefore creates higher prices, lower reliability, and less innovation for one of America’s major industries.” – Deadline
- How To Declutter Your Attention
The aim is cognitive clarity via fewer inputs, distilled choices, and settings centred around presence and focus. While design minimalism emphasizes appearance and object count, psychological minimalism directs attention and reduces cognitive friction. – Psyche
