“Everything I’ve done in my life,” he told me at the beginning of our wide-ranging conversation in his office, “has really been to challenge the status quo—not to be satisfied with the way things are, but to try to improve them.” I “get” Eli, perhaps because (as I learned from his book) we had a lot in common. – Lee Rosenbaum

The Senior Program Coordinator of the National Accelerator at ASU’s Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts speaks about the impact of collaboration and fellowships on students. – Aaron Dworkin

The pursuit of audiences and artists who come from, and speak for, various subgroups can enrich any shared arts experience aesthetically, emotionally, and socially. Longer term, it can translate to broader support and buy-in for arts organizations — in short, to more staying power. Still, it’s not always clear which business decisions can drive this objective. Re-enter SMU DataArts. – Sunil Iyengar

Two years ago, when the Salem, Mass. museum named Brian Kennedy, then director of the Toledo Museum, to succeed longtime director Dan Monroe, I wondered why Lynda Hartigan hadn’t gotten the nod. Now, after a brief detour to Toronto as deputy director at the Royal Ontario Museum, Lynda is returning to direct the museum that she so ably served, beginning as chief curator in 2003. – Lee Rosenbaum

The President & Executive Director of the Merit School of Music shares about the importance and impact of collaboration between arts organizations. – Aaron Dworkin

The verdict in the George Floyd murder trial provides your arts organization with an opportunity to take a very simple quiz to determine its readiness for engaging with communities. Here are three questions. – Doug Borwick

At this writing, the Metropolitan Museum is safe and so am I. That said, for a brief time during my visit there Monday afternoon, I feared for my life. (Admittedly, I tend to panic when being evacuated due to a bomb scare.) – Lee Rosenbaum

The only thing that’s certain about the fate of this elusive painting is that the story about why it hasn’t publicly surfaced since it was sold more than three years ago for $450 million keeps on changing. – Lee Rosenbaum

The dean of Juilliard’s Preparatory Division and trombonist in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra speaks about transforming young artists’ lives and incorporating diversity across the breadth of an institution’s programs. – Aaron Dworkin

The intent is to overcome the very real danger that the nonprofit arts industry’s “equity statements” could easily become like the “thoughts and prayers” responses to mass shootings — worthy sentiments that lead nowhere. Without “feet to the fire” targets of some kind it’s too easy to slide into the comfort of the status quo. – Doug Borwick

The Assistant Director of the Colburn School’s Center for Innovation and Community Impact shares the impact of Colburn’s EDI initiatives and strategies on being an “intrapreneur.” – Aaron Dworkin

The pertinence of A Soldier’s Tale today is self-evident. It is a COVID diversion: compact, flexible, rejecting Romantic symphonic upholstery in favor of a dry, caustic sonority conducive to bitter entertainments, light-hearted yet not evasive. – Joseph Horowitz

A guest post by actor/writer/arts administrator Selena Anguiano, who shares some concerns about the use of benchmarks in the process of pursuing equity in nonprofit arts organizations. – Doug Borwick

As I hear my student playing the piano through Zoom, just for a moment, I think I am hearing Paderewski in 1912. The sound is imperfect. At moments it drops out. There are distortions of speed and rhythm. Yet, my ear, my mind is hearing music: completing and linking together the aural information that is there. – Bruce Brubaker

As it happens, I don’t care at all for Childe Hassam’s better-known etchings — I find them fussy — but lithography brought out a freer, more adventurous streak in his work, and there is one print of his that I have long sought, Avenue of the Allies. Also made in 1918, it is a lithographic monochrome pendant to the well-known series of thirty-odd brightly colored “flag paintings” that Hassam made during and after World War I. – Terry Teachout

Taking a page from the problematic playbooks of the Berkshire, Everson and Baltimore museums, the Greenville County Museum of Art, South Carolina, has become the latest poster child for deplorable deaccessions. – Lee Rosenbaum

The Secretary General of the European Union Youth Orchestra shares about the connection between the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the mission of arts organizations. – Aaron Dworkin

I have said before here that the time for talk is long past and that figuring out a way to prod real action on DEI issues is essential. This Conversation, hosted by the Community Engagement Network, is an attempt to lay groundwork for actual movement. – Doug Borwick

 A generation of important Chinese composers, paradoxical beneficiaries of enforced rural relocation, wound up studying in the West. For many, Bela Bartok became a lodestar for his way of retaining the spontaneity and savage beauty of folk elements. And so they discovered a middle ground between Chinese and Western instrumental performance. – Joseph Horowitz

The co-founder, Artistic/Executive Director and violist of Castle of our Skins, a collective of artists of all kinds dedicated to advancing Black artistry through music, shares the philosophy behind her leadership work furthering the contributions of Black artists. – Aaron Dworkin

Compared with the average annual growth rate of arts and cultural industries as a whole (+3 percent), web streaming and web publishing surged by 12 percent, in terms of the value added by those industries to the U.S. economy. The book and software publishing industry grew by over 7 percent. In both cases, we might expect to see sustained if not accelerated growth when the 2020 numbers are released next year. – Sunil Iyengar

Here are some lessons from old-school conference speakers who acknowledged the need for progress, but defended what former Metropolitan Museum director Philippe de Montebello once called “the primacy of art” in the museum’s mission. – Lee Rosenbaum

Lucky in Manhattan to have a Japanese market nearby, and because I’m enticed by anything in a post-Pop package, I fell for Nobel’s Super Cola, three ounces for $3, a dozen or so globes of hot surprise. I told myself that I sprung for my candyphile boyfriend, but they were really for me. When artists such as Lichtenstein or Indiana (not Gary) are ripped off for the package, I grab it. – Jeff Weinstein

To get the drift of Aufzeichnungen über Aussenseiter, I’ve been typing pieces of text into Google Translate. It’s a helluva time-consuming job, but it’s more than worth the effort. It’s just obvious how classy and swinging the whole thing is! Herewith, an excerpt: “Buk Sings His Ass Off.” – Jan Herman

Although last week’s Syracuse Symposium was nominally about Deaccessioning After 2020, it was mostly focused on the new museum imperative — advancing DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Access) by any means possible, even at the cost of dismantling, monetizing and redefining the “permanent” collection to further those sociopolitical goals. – Lee Rosenbaum