This story may sound like a metaphor. But it’s actually a case-in-point. – Andrew Taylor

A literary era passes. It was already past, yet it still has influence. My account is minimal in the scheme of things but here ‘tiz anyhow, excerpted from My Adventures in Fugitive Litrichur. – Jan Herman

Chicago presenters of jazz and new music, and journalists from Madrid to the Bay Area, vocalist Kurt Elling, trumpeter Orbert Davis and pianist Lafayette Gilchrist discussed how they’ve transcended coronavirus-restrictions on live performances in two Zoom panels I moderated last week. – Howard Mandel

Although it gives us fascinating inside-the-studio glimpses of several important artists at work, Black Art: In the Absence of Light insufficiently illuminates the depth and breadth of work African-American artists are producing today. – Lee Rosenbaum

Someone’s calling, maybe me. C. C sharp? D? My scalp tightens, which makes me wonder where I am, and who, too. But this voice today is a shell’s, of a conch from a Pyrenees cave, assigned as Paleolithic, 17,000 years old. – Jeff Weinstein

The President of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra speaks about the importance of live, in-person concerts and the day-to-day leadership of a major symphony orchestra. – Aaron Dworkin

As the chaos and confusion of the global pandemic shows distant glimpses of something less chaotic, the question of “strategy” is emerging once again. Now that arts organizations are making space to imagine the “next normal,” it’s worth remembering what “strategy” actually is and does. – Andrew Taylor

The failure to lift our eyes and see that our core work can and should be connecting people with art is the principal source of the problems we have experienced over the last 20-30 years. – Doug Borwick

The choreographer, performer, writer, educator, and speaker shares her creative process and the connection between movement and discord. – Aaron Dworkin

What makes washtubs sound best? How about coffee cans? For the answers, check out Lou Harrison’s instructions for his Concerto for Violin and Percussion. So far as I am aware, it is the most memorable, most original violin concerto by any American. It also creates a visual spectacle ideal for COVID-era streamed performances. – Joseph Horowitz

The doubts engendered in me by the shifting ground (related to the proximity to the La Brea Tar Pits) under the cranes being used for construction of LACMA’s new Geffen Galleries caused me to reflect back on Govan’s spotty track record for delivering on his ambitious, provocative proposals. – Lee Rosenbaum

The president of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music speaks about the school’s historic acquisition of Opus 3 Artists. – Aaron Dworkin

At this point I would implore arts organizations not to return to pre-pandemic practices with nothing more than modest tweaks. This is a time for serious reconfiguring. So let me suggest three categories for new or significantly expanded approaches. – Doug Borwick

When PostClassical Ensemble undertook our world premiere recording of the 1944 radio play Whitman, we did so believing that Bernard Herrmann’s Whitman setting is a singular addition to the repertoire of “melodramas” – compositions for music plus the spoken word. – Joseph Horowitz

In decades of covering museum buildings, I’ve mostly refrained from “reviewing” a building that hasn’t gone up yet. That’s why I’ve hung back from commenting on the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s capital project-in-progress. But an unsettling (literally) development led me to weigh in. – Lee Rosenbaum

An arts organization must come to matter to the community. When it matters, the community will support it. But how do arts organizations come to matter? The mindset that “We matter because we present great art.” does not cut it. It is only things that people see as important to their lives that fill this bill. – Doug Borwick

Laura Baptiste, the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s always-helpful chief of communications, found herself dealing with misinformation disseminated in a number of news reports after the inauguration festivities. – Lee Rosenbaum

The Philadelphia Orchestra bassist and entrepreneur shares the passions that have fueled his success. – Aaron Dworkin

Am I the only one who gasped at the photo in this tweet? – Lee Rosenbaum

“If we are empowered with creativity, with collaboration, with all of the skills that come from practicing the arts… that will lead to the breakthrough ideas.” Trey Devey, President of the Interlochen Center for the Arts, speaks to the power of arts education. – Aaron Dworkin

Throwing caution to the winds, the Metropolitan Museum today went beyond the more measured words of a few other museums in its angry call to “bring to justice those responsible” for the “criminal actions” at the Capitol on Jan. 6. – Lee Rosenbaum

The viability of our industry depends upon developing relationships — making connections — with many new communities. The bases for success are respect and humility. – Doug Borwick

This was a week when blogging-as-usual struck me as irredeemably frivolous. Trying to promulgate commentary about art and the artworld seemed fatuous, at a time when our nation’s adherence to the rule of law, reason and humane values (and even its very existence) seemed at stake. – Lee Rosenbaum

“If they were a strange sight to me, I was no less of a one to them. It was the first time that many of them had seen an ‘intellectual.’ I was being gradually drawn, you see, into the political struggle with the peasantry!” That’s Aaron Copland in 1934, reflecting upon addressing a Communist picnic in Minnesota. – Joseph Horowitz