AJBlogs

This week, ArtsJournal looked at thousands of stories and collected 118 stories across culture. This is one person's attempt to make sense of them.

Carlos Simon, Composer-in-Residence of the Kennedy Center, shares the ethos behind his composing process that impacts communities.

This past week I’ve been sent different, interesting takes on the state of cultural policy research. My friend James Doeser, who is very smart about these things, has a short post “The crisis of cultural policy in the 21st century” that is well worth your time. Friends and former colleagues

The following article is an abridged adaptation of my January 22 NPR report on recent developments in government and the arts — at the NEA, the NEH, and the Kennedy Center —  under President Donald J. Trump. I write: “The arts sector feels invaded by aliens. The incursion is so

The fear and concern are real. The issues are real. But we're trying to conjure up rules for 21st Century technologies with a 20th-Century vocabulary that's ill-equipped for the job.

It's cheaper and more effective to keep people well than to make people well.

Neil Barclay, President & CEO of the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, talks the evolving landscape for BIPOC organizations and avenues for sustainability.

My forthcoming novel, The Disciple: A Wagnerian Tale of the Gilded Age, may be my best book. A prequel to The Marriage: The Mahlers in New York (2023), it’s already available via pre-order. (And if you order both books, you get a discount.) My story tracks the prodigious American impact

Doing the right thing isn’t easy. But it’s always the right thing to do. Right?

Marvin Curtis, Immediate Past Board Chair of the South Bend Symphony shares the purpose and impact behind the documentary, The Invisible Player.

In the midst of a lot of other news in his first 8 days in office….funding for child care for all, reactions to tragedy, responding to threats from the federal government, and more, new New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani made ‘arts for all’ a priority.  On Friday, he joined with the producers of the

A couple of my recent blogs – here and here — have saluted John Luther Adams as “among the most esteemed present-day American composers for orchestra. . . . Encountering Adams’s Become Ocean on a 21st-century symphonic program is so fundamentally enthralling that it risks cliché. It is the proverbial oasis in the

Now that it’s 2026, the public expects its charities to be charitable — including your theater, opera, ballet, museum, and symphony.

A reader, Kevin, asks if I had seen this new report by Brian Shearer at Vanderbilt University on legal remedies for high prices charged by different sorts of firms (airports, hospitals, car dealerships, etc) on “captive” consumers. I had not. I am no lawyer, and so I cannot speak to the various

Adrian Rodriguez, Director of Community Engagement, Chorus Director and Curriculum Manager of the Music Advancement Program at The Juilliard School, shares how to implement a commitment to young people as they develop in the arts.