Rebecca Makkai has judged six major awards in the past eight years (a pace she does not recommend), and she shares some things she’s learned that she thinks most people don’t realize. For instance, she explains, the process is both purer and more random than you’d guess. - SubMakk
“The whole art gallery art system became too big, too commercial, too impersonal and too corporate,” Marc Glimcher, the chief executive, said in an interview this week. - The New York Times
The AI revolution in Hollywood is not just real, but taking form in tangible projects that people can now see. Whether it's animated shorts, experimental theatrical projects or full-blown movies and shows, AI is showing that it can not only cut down on costs and production time, but push the boundaries of storytelling. - The Wrap...
If Bilton stays, as he presumably will, the organization will try to muddle its way forward, damaged and listing and leaking to the gossip columns. Meanwhile, no answers were forthcoming about why Weiss was so determined to burn "60 Minutes" down. - The Wrap (MSN)
“The program, Next Stage Chicago, will provide a maximum of $50,000 to up to eight nonprofit theater companies that have been in business for at least three years but no more than 10.” - WBEZ (Chicago)
The festivals involved in the plan, including the main international festival, will soon invite bidders to investigate how to merge the ticketing operations and data of all 11 events, which in 2024 sold nearly 4m tickets in total. Others include the book festival and the film festival. - The Guardian
A belief that what is good will be paid for by consumers, and that the state should stand back and play as small a part as possible. Applying this to the arts means that they are not a public good but instead a sector that should be shaped by market principles, competition, and measurable returns. -...
“I think print media is incredibly open. You can hand it to someone, you can read it together,” Obara says, calling mobile phones “very insular.” - Japan Times
“The (latest) funding round” — a sale of stock which raised $400 million — “comes just six months after Suno previously announced a $250 million funding round that had valued the company at $2.45 billion.” - The Hollywood Reporter
Triumphal arches are thuggish. They’re the architectural equivalent of a domestic abuser standing, arms crossed, legs athwart, in front of the bedroom door. I prefer the democratic, American tradition of modest, respectful, open-air monuments. - The Atlantic
The complex case revolves around a 2004 transaction, in which Monet’s great-nephew agreed to relinquish a rare Monet painting depicting the artist’s father, Adolphe, to the internationally renowned Wildenstein gallery, in exchange for several paintings of lesser value. - ARTnews
More than 100 artists are threatening legal action against the Venice Biennale Foundation for ignoring their demands that the foundation withdraw their names from consideration for the “Visitors’ Lion” awards at the current edition over the inclusion of national pavilions by Israel and Russia. - ARTnews
After two dry runs with facsimiles, France’s culture ministry is confident that the fragile 900-year-old textile will be fine. They’ve developed an ingenious container contraption to absorb all shocks on the roads, and the date and details of the transport are a closely-guarded secret. - BBC (Yahoo!)
“Isabel Abascal and Alessandro Arienzo (of Mexico City’s Lanza Atelier) have gone back to basics and produced one of the most literal Serpentine pavilions in years, featuring an actual serpentine, expressed as a wavy wall of rust-coloured brick.” - The Guardian
“Average daily usage per YouTube account (worldwide) rose from 87.2 minutes in 2024 to 99.1 in 2025, according to analysis conducted by the Digital i agency across 20 international markets. The figure for Netflix dropped from 100.5 to 93.4 minutes.” - The Guardian
“A consortium led by Montclair State University has won a competitive process to take over New Jersey’s public television station.” The move comes months after New York PBS station WNET declined to renew its contract to run the New Jersey outlet. - New Jersey Globe
“Senate Bill 133 creates Colorado Artist Companies, or A Corps, a new subset of limited liability corporations that guides artists through the complexities of setting up a business while ensuring they retain creative control over their work, which can include everything from songs, paintings and poems, to less obvious output, like creative coursework.” - The Colorado Sun
“Dozens of artists participating in this year’s Venice Biennale contemporary art show are threatening legal action if their names are not removed from the ballot allowing visitors to vote for the best national pavilion and overall participants in the absence of a jury” — they all resigned — “to award the prestigious Golden Lions.” - AP
She achieved international fame for the graphic memoir of her girlhood in Khomeini’s Iran, and then for co-directing the animated film adaptation. Based in Paris, she went on to direct other films, animated and live-action, and publish graphic works, and remained a lifelong advocate for the rights of Iranians, particularly women. - Deadline
Manfred Gurlitt was reluctant to leave Germany when the Nazis came to power, but he ultimately had to flee and ended up in Tokyo. By 1941 he was music director of the Tokyo Philharmonic; a decade later, he had founded his own opera company and taught most of Japan’s opera singers. - Bachtrack
A belief that what is good will be paid for by consumers, and that the state should stand back and play as small a part as possible. Applying this to the arts means that they are not a public good but instead a sector that should be shaped by market principles, competition, and measurable returns. - The Big Idea
The research demonstrates that our “semantic knowledge”, the internal cognitive map of how concepts connect and apply to one another, is the absolute precondition for meaningful invention. - Neuroscience
Machine learning represents a seismic shift, both in society and in the arts, and we need storytellers, artists, teachers and thinkers in this space to help determine the direction of that shift and help us navigate this unfamiliar territory. - The Guardian
Computers talk to computers, producing information to train computers to sound more like humans or to better engage them. Humans type into the box, scroll, and wait. - The Atlantic
“The Town has seen its homegrown talent reach new levels of success on the global stage, from figure skater Alysa Liu earning Olympic gold in Milan to filmmaker Ryan Coogler winning four Oscars for his blockbuster Sinners and R&B powerhouse Kehlani receiving two Grammy Awards.” - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)
Just in case you’ve missed multiple strains of philosophy, ethics, and “happiness studies” over the years, not to mention Buddhist thought, well: "When we encounter something new, we get a dopamine hit. … But sometimes novelty seduces us without offering anything meaningful.” - Fast Company
The festivals involved in the plan, including the main international festival, will soon invite bidders to investigate how to merge the ticketing operations and data of all 11 events, which in 2024 sold nearly 4m tickets in total. Others include the book festival and the film festival. - The Guardian
“Senate Bill 133 creates Colorado Artist Companies, or A Corps, a new subset of limited liability corporations that guides artists through the complexities of setting up a business while ensuring they retain creative control over their work, which can include everything from songs, paintings and poems, to less obvious output, like creative coursework.” - The Colorado Sun
The New School will employ 65 fewer full-time faculty members in the fall than it did last year, Kessler said. Based on the most recent federal data, that reduction would amount to roughly 36 percent of its 2024 full-time faculty work force. - Chronicle of Higher Education
Yale University’s master’s programs in visual arts and music would fail. Harvard University’s master’s degree in museum studies would fail. The Juilliard School’s undergraduate and graduate programs in music would fail. - The New York Times
More Australians are attending live arts events and festivals, with 2025 the highest level of attendance recorded. While some art forms have seen shifts back towards more frequent pre-COVID-19 attendance patterns, others have not fully recovered. - Creative Australia
“The Department of Education has proposed a new ‘accountability’ system that would judge higher-education programs largely by graduates’ earnings, ... a test that music, visual arts, and filmmaking programs would, by their nature, be likely to fail." Programs whose graduates don't meet earnings benchmarks could become ineligible for federal student loans. - ARTnews
“The (latest) funding round” — a sale of stock which raised $400 million — “comes just six months after Suno previously announced a $250 million funding round that had valued the company at $2.45 billion.” - The Hollywood Reporter
Manfred Gurlitt was reluctant to leave Germany when the Nazis came to power, but he ultimately had to flee and ended up in Tokyo. By 1941 he was music director of the Tokyo Philharmonic; a decade later, he had founded his own opera company and taught most of Japan’s opera singers. - Bachtrack
The NSO doesn’t even know if it has a home, given the previously announced two-year closure of the Kennedy Center. This is a very bad sign. Further, the tools for survival are entangled in the Kennedy Center’s legal and financial troubles. - Variety
"We started programming SHIFT because there is a bit of a crisis in the performing arts with regards to machine learning. There's absolute panic. And in fact last year, when we announced it, some leading people in the arts were describing AI as evil and as the devil." - The Independent
“Music recorded in 432 hertz (cycles per second) is taking off on social media platforms and music streaming services. … Scientists say there’s no robust evidence that music tuned to 432 hertz has any special benefits or healing properties. Some musicians and listeners say it helps them connect with nature, relax or concentrate.” -...
The orchestra’s keyboardist had suddenly fallen ill. Was there by any chance a pianist in the house? And one with exceptional sight-reading skills? - The Guardian
“The whole art gallery art system became too big, too commercial, too impersonal and too corporate,” Marc Glimcher, the chief executive, said in an interview this week. - The New York Times
Triumphal arches are thuggish. They’re the architectural equivalent of a domestic abuser standing, arms crossed, legs athwart, in front of the bedroom door. I prefer the democratic, American tradition of modest, respectful, open-air monuments. - The Atlantic
The complex case revolves around a 2004 transaction, in which Monet’s great-nephew agreed to relinquish a rare Monet painting depicting the artist’s father, Adolphe, to the internationally renowned Wildenstein gallery, in exchange for several paintings of lesser value. - ARTnews
More than 100 artists are threatening legal action against the Venice Biennale Foundation for ignoring their demands that the foundation withdraw their names from consideration for the “Visitors’ Lion” awards at the current edition over the inclusion of national pavilions by Israel and Russia. - ARTnews
After two dry runs with facsimiles, France’s culture ministry is confident that the fragile 900-year-old textile will be fine. They’ve developed an ingenious container contraption to absorb all shocks on the roads, and the date and details of the transport are a closely-guarded secret. - BBC (Yahoo!)
“Isabel Abascal and Alessandro Arienzo (of Mexico City’s Lanza Atelier) have gone back to basics and produced one of the most literal Serpentine pavilions in years, featuring an actual serpentine, expressed as a wavy wall of rust-coloured brick.” - The Guardian
Rebecca Makkai has judged six major awards in the past eight years (a pace she does not recommend), and she shares some things she’s learned that she thinks most people don’t realize. For instance, she explains, the process is both purer and more random than you’d guess. - SubMakk
The two women lived openly as a same-sex couple from 1807 to 1851 in Weybridge, VT, where they ran a successful tailoring business. Despite some local misgivings, they were largely accepted. Neighborhood children apprenticed with them, and Sylvia served as a deacon in the local Congregational Church. - ArtsFuse
"These books may have inspired more than their share of hot takes ... but the conversations around them allow us to question where we are and what our feminist ideals have become … (now that) so many of the problems that felt like they were somehow close to being solved … have become drastically...
“The Star Tribune employs 495 people and cuts will be made across every department. The newsroom has just under 200 journalists and will decline to 175 while remaining one of the largest between the coasts. Just last year, 125 employees were laid off when the company ... closed its ... printing plant.” - The Minnesota...
Nobody would patronize a best-seller–only shopping mall kiosk called We Bet We Have That Book You Want, even though best-sellers are most of what anyone buys. People want to walk into stores with lots of books which they have no interest in even looking at. - Republic of Letters
Membership in the ABA grew by more than 500 over the past year, to a total of 3,417 (at 3,783 locations), nearly triple what it was a decade ago and the highest level since the late 1990s. - AP News
The AI revolution in Hollywood is not just real, but taking form in tangible projects that people can now see. Whether it's animated shorts, experimental theatrical projects or full-blown movies and shows, AI is showing that it can not only cut down on costs and production time, but push the boundaries of storytelling. -...
If Bilton stays, as he presumably will, the organization will try to muddle its way forward, damaged and listing and leaking to the gossip columns. Meanwhile, no answers were forthcoming about why Weiss was so determined to burn "60 Minutes" down. - The Wrap (MSN)
“I think print media is incredibly open. You can hand it to someone, you can read it together,” Obara says, calling mobile phones “very insular.” - Japan Times
“Average daily usage per YouTube account (worldwide) rose from 87.2 minutes in 2024 to 99.1 in 2025, according to analysis conducted by the Digital i agency across 20 international markets. The figure for Netflix dropped from 100.5 to 93.4 minutes.” - The Guardian
“A consortium led by Montclair State University has won a competitive process to take over New Jersey’s public television station.” The move comes months after New York PBS station WNET declined to renew its contract to run the New Jersey outlet. - New Jersey Globe
“Rainey Broadcasting has told the FCC that development surrounding a massive data center and semiconductor manufacturing project forced gospel WFQY Jackson, MS (970 AM) from its longtime location. Yet ... a rival broadcaster (is) arguing the Commission should determine whether the station had already been silent before the site was lost.” - Inside Radio
“Dozens of artists participating in this year’s Venice Biennale contemporary art show are threatening legal action if their names are not removed from the ballot allowing visitors to vote for the best national pavilion and overall participants in the absence of a jury” — they all resigned — “to award the prestigious Golden Lions.” - AP
“That’s the entire mission of the school Not ‘You come to us’ but ‘We bring dance to you.’ And we want people in the room who can say, ‘I was just like you and now I’m out in the world dancing.’” - The New York Times
Peter Veth has never studied in Cambodia — only in his hometown of Lowell, Mass., a center of the diaspora. But from sixth grade on he took classes with visiting Cambodian masters and at Lowell’s Angkor Dance Troupe, where he now teaches the art form to younger dancers. - Dance Teacher
“It was six weeks of being unable to move, ... to participate in life at all, before she could get out of bed. And then Lauren Cuthbertson, the biggest British dance star since Darcey Bussell, … had to persuade her useless limbs, now stripped of their strength, to listen to her brain again.” - The Times...
Ballet has a reputation for upholding rigid body standards. In recent years, though, the art form has been rethinking its relationship to diversity in areas like race and body type. - The New York Times
Why so much dance on TV lately? “Where the goal is to quickly get and then hold the viewer’s attention, energetic movement is a straightforward strategy. Dance’s graphic elements immediately catch the eye, and they can make that gaze linger.” - Dance Magazine
“The program, Next Stage Chicago, will provide a maximum of $50,000 to up to eight nonprofit theater companies that have been in business for at least three years but no more than 10.” - WBEZ (Chicago)
“The program … faces criticism from budget watchdog groups, state lawmakers, and even theatrical insiders who say the tax credits don’t support shows most in need of financial support. Many that have received state aid had the backing of major production companies,” including Disney. - Bloomberg Law News
The Health Alliance for Chicago Comedians is building a pilot program to help 10 comics pay insurance premiums through the Affordable Care Act’s next open enrollment period. Stand-up comedians, especially early in their careers, often take gigs and side jobs which offer no insurance. - WBEZ (Chicago)
“Maybe it was very important, and maybe you’re a doctor, and you’re saving someone’s life, and I hope you are, but we do see these, we do feel them. I’ve got you, I feel like I’ve got to hold you all, so when I feel that and see it, it’s hard.” - The Guardian
Designed by award-winning architects Studio Gang, the 451-seat Scripps Theater Center — in Garrison, NY, 60 miles north of New York City — is a curved mass-timber structure with open sides, set on 98 landscaped acres overlooking the Hudson River. Year-round facilities will let the festival expand beyond a summer schedule. - Time Out...
“The Book of Mormon, one of Broadway’s biggest hits, resumed performances on Wednesday night after a three-week shutdown prompted by a damaging three-alarm electrical fire at the theater where the musical comedy has been running for 15 years.” - The New York Times
She achieved international fame for the graphic memoir of her girlhood in Khomeini’s Iran, and then for co-directing the animated film adaptation. Based in Paris, she went on to direct other films, animated and live-action, and publish graphic works, and remained a lifelong advocate for the rights of Iranians, particularly women. - Deadline
His groundbreaking work as a music theorist primarily advanced Schenkerian theory by integrating rhythmic, metric, and harmonic dimensions into linear voice-leading analysis, while emphasizing how these elements interact to form structural coherence in tonal music. - The Violin Channel
As Martha, he hosted a highly popular monthly cabaret and collaborated with, among others, the Philadelphia Orchestra and Opera Philadelphia. He also had a notable career, under his own persona, as an actor and theatermaker, most notably as a cofounder of Pig Iron Theatre Company. - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
Over his 31 years as general manager, he made the company into one of the most respected in the country and, said some observers, the Wagner capital of the U.S. It’s easy to forget that he began his career as a New York music critic and hosted Met Opera telecasts. - MyNorthwest.com
Adelaide Wisdom Benjamin, a queen of Carnival who became a lawyer and philanthropist whose gifts of money, determination and leadership helped save New Orleans’ symphony orchestra, died Saturday in her sleep at her New Orleans home. - NOLA.com
As President, lead a world-renowned orchestra into an exciting new era. Shape the future of the Buffalo Philharmonic and make a lasting cultural impact.
The next Chief Executive Officer will drive a forward-looking vision that integrates artistic excellence with meaningful educational and community impact.
Yale University’s master’s programs in visual arts and music would fail. Harvard University’s master’s degree in museum studies would fail. The Juilliard School’s undergraduate and graduate programs in music would fail. - The New York Times
“The Department of Education has proposed a new ‘accountability’ system that would judge higher-education programs largely by graduates’ earnings, ... a test that music, visual arts, and filmmaking programs would, by their nature, be likely to fail." Programs whose graduates don't meet earnings benchmarks could become ineligible for federal student loans. - ARTnews
Over his 31 years as general manager, he made the company into one of the most respected in the country and, said some observers, the Wagner capital of the U.S. It’s easy to forget that he began his career as a New York music critic and hosted Met Opera telecasts. - MyNorthwest.com
It’s not about the phones. Instead, as a society, we have to remove structural barriers - and build new libraries. "A democracy needs its people to read, and it is society’s job to make that possible.” - The New York Times
“When the history of Trump’s second administration is written, the whole sorry Kennedy Center chapter will be key to understanding the chaos, cruelty and grotesque egotism of the president, as well as the bravery and determination of those who resisted and persevered.” - Washington Post (Yahoo)
“From the first day I met him, when I was going through a period of frustration, I knew we would make special films, that he would elevate me to another level. He pressed my acting button again.” - El País English
He’s also said he wants to headline it himself. But “a senior administration official described the rollout of the concerts as ‘a mess’ and suggested that someone would most likely be fired over how the invitations to the event had been handled.” - The New York Times
Remember when Jonah Peretti of Buzzfeed seemed like a good guy? That was a long time ago, and we were all so much more innocent, including the creator of Good Advice Cupcake: "I trusted them, though naively, when they said they had no interest in continuing Cuppy without me." - Wired
A federal judge Friday ordered that President Donald Trump’s name be removed from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and that officials halt its plan to close the venue for two years. - Washington Post
