Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
Musicians Have The Same Issues As Actors, Writers. So Why Aren’t They Also On...
All the fears and complaints that Hollywood actors and writers have are a reality for musicians and songwriters, too. Yet the rockers, pop singers...
At This Point In Our Culture, What Is History For?
Ironically, the education of more and more people in the United States has led to an expansion of potential audiences for quality, and progressive,...
Two Art Vandals Who Glued Themselves To A Raphael Painting Fined $1,600 Each
The Dresden prosecutor’s office announced on July 21 that the two activists, Jakob Beyer and Maike Grunst, would be fined €1,500 ($1,600) each for...
New Ways To Use Old Instruments
New music for old instruments is, of course, nothing new. Nor is the engagement by composers with varying degrees of historically informed performance. But...
Bay Area Musicians Fight Back Against The Gig Economy For A Living Wage
With each musician guaranteed $200 for an hour-long set, “we’ve presented about 400 concerts featuring 500 musicians, reaching about 18,000 listeners." - San Francisco...
What Was Remarkable About Conductor Carlos Kleiber
Like Kleiber, Klaus Tennstedt and Leonard Bernstein seemed to harness everything they knew in the heat of the moment. But Kleiber also had structural...
Spotify’s Stock Is Tanking This Week. Why?
Spotify said recent price increases are expected to have “minimal impact” on the company’s total revenue in the third quarter. - CNBC
The Mindfulness Industrial Complex Can’t Do For You What Art Does
Modern mental wellness tools, like mindfulness apps and cognitive behavioral therapy, vary in approach but share a self-help strategy centered on self-surveillance. But encouraging...
What AI Writing Reveals About Good Writing
As we explore new applications for large language models and consider how well they can optimize our communication, AI challenges us to reflect on...
Is Today’s Pop Music Getting Too Simplistic?
"I think the average listeners ears are becoming more attuned to ever-greater simplicity and every-greater economy in music." - Music Radar
Hollywood Needs To Reinvent Or It Will Die
How do you decide that the content you’re producing is actually generating value? That goes back to the question that we have about how...
America’s Theatre Crisis – Why Now?
So why has our theatre field contracted so precipitously in the past few months, with casualties recorded at every kind of theatre while at...
Seattle Art Museum Director Steps Down
Amanda Cruz oversaw some of the most turbulent years in SAM’s 90-year history. - Seattle Times
Experts Dismiss AI Analysis Determining Painting Is By Raphael
“I have never seen the piece in person but judging from the photograph it would appear to be a copy after Raphael. True connoisseurship relates...
Seattle Repertory Theatre Hires A New Artistic Director
Dámaso Rodríguez was artistic director at Portland’s Artists Repertory Theatre for nine years before stepping down in 2021. He co-founded Los Angeles troupe Furious...
French Horn Player Born With No Arms Makes His Proms Debut
He won the prestigious Leonard Bernstein Award in 2016, has recorded several acclaimed albums (including his 2013 debut Reveries and a 2019 performance of...
AI Is Remaking The $200 Billion Video Game Industry
Hundreds of thousands of jobs are on the line. Yet company leaders and studio chiefs told Bloomberg News that the changes, while inevitable and...
Just What Was Behind The Popularity Of Barbenheimer?
Apart from being the latest works by beloved writer-directors, there is one quality that Barbie and Oppenheimer share, which is that they’re both movies of ideas: not just...
What’s Behind Our Addiction To DuoLingo?
It’s far from clear we’re getting anything from Duolingo’s purported speed. I’m not even sure it’s fun anymore. And there are quicker ways to not learn...
The War Has Galvanized Ukraine’s Culture
The fight against the urge to let hatred win can be seen playing out on the front lines—but also in homes, in institutions, and...
Sonny Rollins, Omnivore
To be able to make creativity and invention sound “natural,” one needs an avid, almost greedy urge to absorb anything—and everything—that is out there. -...
How Five Days Of Russian TV Can Warp Your Brain
The first thing you notice when you switch on Russian TV is its totemic fascination with the swastika, which regularly appears on one of...
Story Ballets Are Still Popular (But Problematic). So How To Fix Narrative Dance?
“There are no mothers-in-law in ballet”, George Balanchine, who dominated American ballet throughout the twentieth century, liked to say: dance, he believed, is not...
How Our Digital Devices Killed Literary Fiction
Are you reading this on your phone, swiping up the paragraphs, swipe, swipe, swipe, wondering how far you're going to have to swipe to actually finish this...
Mindfulness Is Overrated. Escapism, On The Other Hand…
Meditating and other forms of mindfulness offer a metaphysical escapism that lets you pretend for a while that you are no more than an...
