“James had performed with an opera company in France and in a popular musical revue in Atlantic City, N.J., when her manager, Abe Saperstein — the basketball impresario behind the Harlem Globetrotters — landed her an audition in 1954 for Carmen Jones.” - The New York Times
“(Hadi Matar,) the New Jersey man on trial (for) the 2022 stabbing of author Salman Rushdie, declined to testify in his defense Thursday as his lawyers rested their case without calling any witnesses. … Earlier Thursday, prosecutors called a forensics expert as their final witness, wrapping up seven days of testimony.” - AP
Over a 50-year career, the Malian writer-director did much to establish sub-Saharan African film as an internationally recognized industry in terms of art as well as commerce. He was the first Black African filmmaker to win a feature film award at Cannes: a Special Jury Prize in 1987 for Yeelen. - AP
"(A Federal judge) ordered Watson and his company to pay over $36 million in restitution and nearly $60 million in forfeiture … for his involvement in a fraud scheme in which he conspired to impersonate a YouTube executive and repeatedly lied to investors about the now-defunct media company’s finances." - Courthouse News Service
"'You become the lie,' (Lisa) Schiff said. … By the time it all came crashing down in 2023, she had stolen some $6.4 million. ... But out of all her transgressions, she seemed most ashamed of the glamour that gilded her crimes. 'I was miserable in that helicopter.'" - The New York Times
"Bochner was one of the key artists associated with the Conceptualist movement during the 1960s and ’70s. In legendary pieces that hardly looked much like art at all, he offered measurements, numbers, words, and others’ photocopied drawings within galleries. There was often little to admire, and that was intentional." - ARTnews
Zander has been educating musicians and audiences about classical music for five decades. During his master class, Zander interacts with both the audience and aspiring cellists who have signed up to seek guidance from Zander. - WBUR
Along with two other writers, Horta helped bring global attention to the dictatorship in Portugal - and to show how all of Portuguese society made women suffer. - The New York Times
Eijiofor: "You can’t hold onto your 30-something self, obviously, but if you still maintain a bit of that quality, it assists you in navigating these waters.” - The New York Times
Berson was a theatre critic for the San Francisco Bay Guardian for a while, and then she spent 25 years at the Seattle Times, along with writing books and creating theatre discussions at both regional and national publications. Says an editor, “Her writing was clear, clean, and imaginative.” - Oregon ArtsWatch
“Edith Mathis a light-voiced Swiss soprano who sparkled in Bach, Mozart and Weber and was the agile-voiced favorite of several of the conducting giants who dominated mid-20th-century concert halls.” - The New York Times
Wydro was "a playwright, director and producer who with his wife, Vy Higginsen, poured their life savings into the Off Broadway gospel musical Mama, I Want to Sing, an enduring work of Black theater that ran for more than 2,800 performances .” - The New York Times
"(She) married technical mastery with charming unpredictability, receiving international acclaim for her sensitive and expressive interpretations of Scarlatti’s sonatas, Bach’s Goldberg Variations and the work of Romantic masters such as Frédéric Chopin." - The Washington Post (MSN)
The controversial Danish director announced in 2022 that he'd been diagnosed with the neurological disorder but that he intended to maintain his career. This year he was working on a film about death and the afterlife; it's evidently unclear whether he'll be able to continue the project. - New York Daily News
On the opera stage, she was known mainly for Mozart, but she was particularly active as a recitalist and concert soloist, and she built up a very large discography in Lieder and vocal-orchestral works from the 1960s into the '80s. - Presto Music
