Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
Conductor Jonathon Heyward’s Rising Star
Heyward, 31, is Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s first music director of color and the youngest current music director of any major U.S. orchestra. To that,...
Michael Lewis At A Crossroads?
What happens when a writer who is used to rapturous reception, with a knack for shaping stories, collides with an active public drama he...
One Seattle Theatre Adopts Another’s Scene Shop As It Goes Out Of Business
“We’re all trying to figure out what it is that makes people get off their couch, come through the rain and show up at...
Study: Working Conditions At US Museums Are Terrible
68% of art museum workers have considered leaving the field, 74% cannot always cover basic living expenses, and it takes an average of 12...
Remembering Parterre’s James Jorden
Here was a zine, and then a website, dedicated to “remembering when opera was queer and dangerous and exciting and making it that way...
When Theatre Is Ailing, What Should Be The Role Of The Critic?
"I ask myself whether, as so many theater companies grapple with ongoing pandemic-related challenges, I should reconceive my role. What ought arts criticism look...
North Carolina Station Will Air Met Opera Broadcasts After All
“It was a very hard decision,” Emily Moss, the music director of WCPE, a nonprofit station based in Wake Forest, said in an interview....
Ian McEwan Speaks Out Against Sensitivity Readers
He described sensitivity reading as “a weird thing that happens in some universities, which we got from the United States”. - The Guardian
Margaret Atwood Reviews A Story By AI Margaret Atwood
Prompt: Can you write a dark and dystopian short story in the voice of Margaret Atwood that takes place in Canada? - The Walrus
AI Musicians And Personalities – Competition For The Real Humans
Musicologist Dr Shara Rambarran says virtual influencers-turned-popstars entering the arena may unsettle IRL (in real life) musicians "who want to put their music out...
Researchers Want To Declare Leading Theory Of Consciousness “Pseudoscience”
Earlier this month, the consciousness science community erupted into chaos. An open letter, signed by 124 researchers—some specializing in consciousness and others not—made the provocative...
Study: Classical Music Audiences’ Heartbeats, Breathing Synchronizes During Concerts
Various measurements became more synchronised during the concerts, such as the participants’ heart rates, breathing speeds and their skin conductance, which measures how much someone is...
Powerful Disney Theatrical Division Head To Be Chief Creative Officer
Thomas Schumacher, who is 65 and currently holds the titles of president and producer of Disney Theatrical Group, told his staff on Thursday morning...
Met Museum Wants To Be A Global Licensing Powerhouse
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, apparently no longer content with just being America’s largest and most famous art institution, has a rapidly growing licensing strategy to help...
Theatre Where Shakespeare Performed Is Found
A theatre in Norfolk believes it has discovered the only surviving stage on which William Shakespeare performed. - BBC
Major New National Initiative To Boost Latinx Theatre
On Monday, the Latino Theater Company announced $9 million in grants to 52 Latino theaters in cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago,...
Why Is The Country Music Industry So Resistant To Diversity?
Black country singers and journalists are being called racial slurs by fans and openly LGBTQ+ performers are having to back out of performances. - The Guardian
Meet This Year’s MacArthur Fellows
The fellowship is “intended to encourage people of outstanding talent to pursue their own creative, intellectual and professional inclinations,” and comes with a $800,000...
Why More And More Writers Are Dropping Quotation Marks
The reasons vary, but more writers are dropping speech marks to explore distances between readers and narrators and even to eliminate hierarchies. - The...
The Right People Aren’t In The Room Talking About AI
AI absolutely is powerful, and it absolutely is dangerous. But as these perspectives reverberate throughout committee hearings, government advisory boards, press releases, and lobbying...
U Penn Shunned Her And Her Work. Now That She’s Won The Nobel Prize,...
Penn demoted Katalin Karikó, shunting her to a lab on the outskirts of campus while cutting her pay. Karikó’s colleagues denigrated her mRNA research and...
Amazon Controls Markets (Including Culture). Now The US Government Is Taking The Company On
In the era of the Internet, a framework that analyzed the benefits to consumers primarily through the metric of cost was no longer realistic,...
Did You Know History Could Have A Gender?
“I’m guessing most of the men who say they think about it all of the time are probably white, cis men. And it’s no...
What If The Robots Were So Nice As They Beat Us That We Were...
Maybe AI will just amplify what’s best about humans. Maybe AI will become a buoyant tribute band for our entire species. Maybe AI will be...
Fifty Years On: Hip Hop As A Cultural Phenomenon
For decades hip-hop artists have used their power as popular culture stars to influence the political sphere. As academics have begun to take notice of the power of hip-hop...
