Yearly Archives: 2023
How Did Tiny Iceland Become A Hotbed Of Orchestral Music?
"In the third decade of the 21st century, no country on Earth has reinvented the language of the symphony orchestra on such distinctive and...
John Kander, At Age 96, Has A New Show Opening On Broadway
Titled New York, New York — yes, after what he calls "that song," which he and Fred Ebb wrote but he's never liked —...
Is The Philadelphia Museum Of Art Sitting On A Vermeer We Didn’t Know About?
"Arie Wallert, a former Rijksmuseum scientific specialist, … is convinced that there are two versions of the young woman playing a guitar: the long-accepted...
Hollywood Is One Step Closer To A Writers’ Strike
"The Writers Guild of America has set a strike authorization vote to begin on April 11. While this marks the first step toward a...
Australia’s National Cultural Institutions Get Big Funding Boost After A Decade Of Neglect And...
"The arts minister, Tony Burke, and the finance minister, Katy Gallagher, will make the $535m pre-budget announcement on Wednesday, throwing a financial lifeline to...
Ontario’s Stratford Festival Reports Modest Surplus
Stratford "reported total revenues of $66.2 million for the year, with a surplus of $638,711 after expenses. The results, credited to strong ticket sales,...
How Architecture Has Become A “Hollowed-Out” Profession
Greater specialisation had become necessary and appropriate as construction grew in complexity, and they felt this compartmentalisation of roles would allow all aspects of...
Reimagining Rave Culture
There’s no strict definition for what constitutes a rave, but in the past the word connoted an underground gathering, usually at some kind of...
The Privilege of Anger
Arguments for anger tend to frame themselves in terms of empowerment: in the face of oppression, we should not feel grief, sadness, or fear—we...
Cory Doctorow: Why I Don’t Produce My Audiobooks On Audible
None of my audiobooks are. Audible, the Amazon division that controls about 90% of the audiobook market, won't carry them because, if you want...
Why Remote Work Won’t Kill Cities
There’s this long history of certain people seeing urban life through the lens of decline. If you look at contemporary usages of this idea...
Bill Zehme, Dead At 64, Was The Absolute Master Of The Celebrity Profile
"(His gift was) to elevate the formulaic celebrity profile with humor, a literary voice and the polish of a short story. That was the...
Fifty Years After He Died, This Is What Picasso Has Become
It’s no longer necessary that he connect in people’s minds with any actual art. It’s enough that he stands for that bigger thing: unfettered...
A New Program To Get More Literature From The Indian Subcontinent Onto English-Language Bookshelves
Almost all of the South Asian books known internationally were written in English, but there's an extremely vibrant literary scene in the subcontinent's own...
The Painting In The TV Room (AKA The Breughel) Sells For $850K
Yes, the family had long called it “The Bruegel,” but it was an affectionate dig at a painting that was clearly a fake. Turns...
Every Year There Are Big New TV Shows During Ramadan, And Every Year There...
"It may partially be due to the fact that Ramadan is a religious holiday, which makes associations with socially controversial subjects, and standard soap...
Giant 225-Ton Landscape Art Relocated Across Washington DC
Six years ago, the National Geographic Society, decided that the sculpture, known as “Marabar” and designed by the artist Elyn Zimmerman, was in the...
Choreographing Dance Scenes For Movie Stars Who Maybe Can’t Dance
"Leading industry choreographers Chloé Arnold, Marguerite Derricks and Mandy Moore share their experiences on what it's really like to create dances for the stars."...
Is Dudamel The Right Music Director For The New York Philharmonic?
Norman Lebrecht: "Bernstein was music director for a record 11 years. His successors were doomed by comparison. Pierre Boulez was too ascetic, Zubin Mehta...
A Superstar Of Electronic Dance Music Turns To Composing For Symphony Orchestra
"After spending more than 20 years in public behind shiny, opaque robot-style helmets as half of the pathbreaking dance-music duo Daft Punk, Thomas Bangalter...
Houston’s Leading Theatre Cancels Cancels A Major Production Because It Just Can’t Get The...
Said artistic director Rob Melrose in his announcement calling off Derek Walcott's adaptation of Homer's Odyssey, "We knew going into this production the scope...
Actors’ Equity Threatens Strike Against Touring Broadway Productions
"The union … has been bargaining with The Broadway League, which represents industry producers, presenters and general managers, since mid-January to create a new...
The Doofus Who Broke Off And Stole The Finger Of A 2,000-Year-Old Terra Cotta...
To avoid a charge that could have sent him to prison for up to 30 years, Mihcael Rohana — who did the deed at...
US Federal Judge Blocks Texas County’s Banning Of Library Books
"A federal judge in Austin, Tex., has found that a library board in Llano County likely infringed the constitutional rights of readers in the...
Venice’s Expensive New Floodgates Are Doing Their Job Well. That May Not Be Enough.
"After all of the effort to get the barriers up, the future challenge will be finding ways to keep them down. Venice is already...
