The “Tristan” participants at the Met on March 9, 1935. Artur Bodanzky is top center.
I am in Ann Arbor, participating in a Mahler project with Ken Kiesler and his fervent University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra – the group with which I memorably toured South Africa a year ago (and
Three AI stories today, three different anxieties. The Atlantic poses the question bluntly: Are you coal or are you a horse? Coal got more useful as technology advanced. Horses got replaced. Commonweal reaches further back — to Wittgenstein — and argues AI’s real threat isn’t to jobs but to meaning itself. And Hyperallergic asks whether artists can find an ethical path forward with tools built on their own plundered work. Different registers, same unease.
Meanwhile, the Salzburg Festival fired artistic director Markus Hinterhäuser — less than two years into a new five-year contract (AP). And the New School is planning to cut 15 percent of its faculty amid a $48 million deficit, which the AAUP is calling the largest attempted faculty firing in the country (Hyperallergic).
On a lighter note: scholars now believe the Book of Kells was made not on Iona but at another Scottish site — because Iona never had the infrastructure for it (Artnet). Thirteen centuries later, the provenance debate continues.
Italian authorities said Thursday they had seized €20 million of assets in Tuscany, including property, vineyards. and artworks, allegedly bought with money embezzled from Andress. The onetime Bond girl, now 90, had filed a complaint alleging a “progressive and significant depletion of her assets” by her financial managers. – AFP (Yahoo!)
Once firms get consumers used to being sorted, profiled, and priced differently, the practice starts to feel inevitable. But it is not. It is a choice about what kind of business practices we expect. Personalized algorithmic pricing pulls together affordability, privacy, competition, consumer protection, and data extraction all at once. – The Walrus
It’s been widely assumed that the 8th-century manuscript was copied and illuminated at St. Columba’s monastery on Scotland’s island of Iona — this despite the fact that there’s no archaeological evidence that Iona had a place or materials for such a major project. Evidence has, however, been found at another Scottish site. – Artnet
Ignoring cultural property protections runs counter to a lesson many military forces, including the United States, have come to recognize: that safeguarding cultural heritage is not only a legal obligation, but also strategically smart. – The Conversation
One thing that has really struck me is that ordinary Americans are far less interested in fighting about history than it might seem. – The New York Times
When Wittgenstein referred to the “beginning of the end of humanity,” he was not envisioning sci-fi cataclysms… He was referring to what he called the “form of life” we inhabit. That form of life is threatened by a way of thinking that lowers human life to the plane of science and technology. – Commonweal
“In its first official season, starting May 2 in New York City, the International Dance League is offering contracts to top-level dance teams and presenting huge arena competitions. … It’s calling the format ‘the MMA of dance.’ And the dance community is reacting with both excitement and skepticism.” – Dance Magazine
Amid a projected $48 million deficit largely attributed to enrollment decline, the New School’s upcoming layoffs come as the newest development in the university’s sprawling workforce reduction saga, which the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) called the “largest attempted firing of faculty currently taking place in the nation.” – Hyperallergic
Searches for the phrase job apocalypse are spiking. Polls show that voters are beginning to freak out. But there’s a better question for white-collar workers to ask themselves: Am I coal, or am I a horse? – The Atlantic
Insulating yourself from inconvenient facts is not an effective long-term life strategy, even for someone powerful enough to externalize the costs of most of their bad decisions onto others. – Artnet
<a href="https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/2026/03/baghdad-bob-in-drag-sycophancy-is-a-feature-not-a-bug.html" title='Baghdad Bob in Drag Sycophancy Is a Feature Not a Bug‘ rel=”nofollow”>‘President Trump has been right about everything.” — White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. (This is old news by now, but the staff felt an obligation to memorialize it.)
Jennifer Schuessler: “Ordinary Americans are far less interested in fighting about history than it might seem. People who work at historical sites, whether government-run or private, report that most visitors, whatever their politics, show up open-minded and curious and hungry for fact-based, nonpartisan history.” – The New York Times
There is understandable fear among artists that artificial intelligence will plunder their work and render already-difficult careers impossible. This sets up the question: Is there an ethical path forward for art and AI? – Hyperallergic
As the US-Israel war on Iran enters its fourth week, neighboring Gulf states, a hub of much of the region’s contemporary art production, are projecting an image of normalcy, with many galleries and museums reopening. – Hyperallergic
West End theater tickets are regularly less expensive than on Broadway, even for the same shows. Last year, the average West End ticket price was about $81, while last season the average Broadway ticket price was roughly $129. – The New York Times
“The channel will distribute more than 100 new videos annually, including feature-length and short documentaries from the PBS series Independent Lens, POV, Reel South and Voices as well as output from PBS’s partnership with BBC Studios.” – The Hollywood Reporter
Nobel laureate Han Kang won the fiction category for We Do Not Part, while Karen Hao took nonfiction honors for Empire of A.I. and Arundhati Roy received the autobiography prize for Mother Mary Comes to Me. Among other honorees were Quinn Slobodian for Hayek’s Bastards (criticism) and Kevin Young for Night Watch (poetry). – AP
“One thing that could help turn things around is if opera companies offered audiences works in the language they speak (and) a musical language they can readily recognize and enjoy. … Too often composers and producers reject music that audiences can easily appreciate as insufficiently sophisticated or original.” – The New York Times
“The BLO has been something of a nomad after ending its relationship with the Shubert Theatre a decade ago. … While the company steadily performs at historic Boston venues like the Emerson Colonial, preparing for their big productions has scattered the company around the city, and beyond, for years” — until now. – WBUR (Boston)
“An Austrian pianist who turns 68 on Monday, Hinterhäuser became artistic director on Oct. 1, 2016. The festival announced in April 2024 that he had been given a third five-year term from 2026-31, but his relationship with management became strained.” – AP
“After The Atlantic cited anonymous sources saying he was, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called it ‘fake news.’ But today the Kennedy Center made it official.” – NPR
Meredith McDonough, formerly associate artistic director at Actors Theatre of Louisville and, before that, director of new works at TheatreWorks in Palo Alto, takes the helm at the Providence company as of August 3. – The Providence Journal
Beginning in 2029 — the same year the Oscar telecast moves to YouTube — the Academy Awards will move to downtown Los Angeles, to L.A. Live, a sports-and-entertainment complex adjacent to the Crypto.com Arena, home of the Lakers basketball team and the Kings hockey team. – The New York Times
“The study sessions were first organized during the COVID-19 pandemic by Entree, the youth association of (Amsterdam’s) Concertgebouw, to help students improve their concentration and introduce them to the charms of classical music. They have been a hit ever since.” – AP
Multiple departments were affected — including programming, development, advertising, marketing and the office of the president — according to multiple people at the center. – Washington Post
This is how I came to understand that the relationship between what we see and what we know—the art of noticing— is a sophisticated act of interpretation, not just passive observation… “By the time you get to New York, this won’t be a thing,” he hissed, and I withered. He wasn’t wrong. – Talk Scratch
“Analysis by the Autonomy Institute shows spending has dropped from £1.19 billion in 2010 to £539 million in 2024 to 25. The data covers local authority budgets for arts and entertainment, including theatres, live performance, museums and galleries.” – WhatsOnStage (UK)
After 16 years helping build one of the most powerful galleries in the world, Cristopher Canizares is stepping away from Hauser & Wirth to try something the art market still hasn’t quite figured out how to define: an artist management agency. – ARTnews
All we have to do is keep kids and families watching Bluey, and they will playfully and profoundly enjoy more classical tunes than the children of almost any previous generation. – The Guardian
As more A.I.-generated writing is put out in the world, more readers will question whether the text they are poring over was penned by a human. We’re barreling toward a rapid erosion of trust between authors and readers, and the publishing industry is unprepared to deal with the consequences. – The New York Times
Everyone is trying to figure out who is LLM and who is human, and sometimes we’re getting it wrong. In particular, people who learned English as a second or third language, working hard to master the strange, unpredictable rules, are accused of using AI precisely because they follow those rules. – New York Magazine
“You can’t create an AI film that resonates with an audience without understanding how to craft an incredible story. We found the people making the very best AI-assisted films in our community are working professionals in the industry.” – The Hollywood Reporter
The Azrieli Foundation, a charitable organisation with ties to Israel’s largest real estate company, will cease its support of the Toronto Arts Foundation following a protest campaign by Canadian artists and arts workers. – The Art Newspaper
function my_excerpt_length($length){ return 200; } add_filter('excerpt_length', 'my_excerpt_length');
‘President Trump has been right about everything.” — White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. (This is old news by now, but the staff felt an obligation to memorialize it.)
