Even after the Soviet Union crumbled, Russia was able to keep up its classical strengths—and attract artists from all around the world. But now its musicians are leaving, and Western ones have stopped arriving for guest performances. - Foreign Policy
Almost everyone agrees that the 117-year-old movie exhibition business cannot keep going like this. But hardly anybody agrees on precisely the best way forward. - The New York Times
The U.S.S.R. filled him with dread, and his return brought to light one of the great themes of his life: he had set his own path away from the Marxist materialism of the Bolshevik Revolution, and quietly built, in N.Y.C.B., a village of angels and a music-filled monument to faith and unreason, to body and beauty and spirit. -...
After taking second prize at the 1990 Leeds International Piano Competition, he performed concertos, recitals, and chamber music at leading venues for years. In the 2010s he took up conducting and became music director of England's Royal Northern Sinfonia and, subsequently, the Orchestre de chambre de Paris. - BBC Music Magazine
Rebecca Haw had a bumpy ride before landing her permanent position in the ballet company at Dresden's Semperoper. Hoping to spare other dancers some of her troubles, she founded CODA — and business quickly boomed as potential clients flocked to the agency. - Pointe Magazine
Even if a director wanted to edit their movie to please ratings royalty, the MPAA’s murky machinations could make it hard for her to determine what to carve out. The aversion to the rating is so strong that a search for films that kept their NC-17 rating and played in theaters yields just 40 titles. - The Daily Beast
In response to the Second Vatican Council's reforms, the monks of the Abbey of Keur Moussa set about Africanizing their worship, researching traditional music and adapting it to their liturgy. It was when they discovered the kora that everything clicked — and even got them a recording contract. - The New Yorker
The items, seized under the terms of three separate search warrants executed during the last six months, will be returned to their countries of origin — 21 to Italy and six to Egypt — in ceremonies scheduled for next week. - The New York Times
"(He) was the influential missing piece in American music, (with) a profound impact on Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, and Broadway from the 1930s to the 1960s. The Communist overtones in his work that polarized 20th-century listeners ... plus the circumstances of his 1964 death, ... make him all the more intriguing." - The Philadelphia Inquirer
AAM’s announcement comes alongside heightened calls for salary transparency in the museum world and as salary transparency laws have taken effect across the country. In New York City, all employers will need to disclose salaries beginning November 1. - Hyperallergic
In her New York Times Op-Ed column last week, Goldberg, drawing on a new book by W. David Marx, seems to argue that the internet's ease of access has made things too easy to be interesting. Not so, responds Ben Davis: the real problem is the clickbait-driven attention economy. - Artnet
A journalist, a radio DJ, and actual YouTubers were brought in as editors to sift through content, finding gems that viewers might love. Officially, these team members were called “community managers.” But a colleague devised a more resonant title for the team: the coolhunters. - The Atlantic
The port city is as famous for its particular sense of humor as New Orleans is for jazz. Says one local comic, "The war has caused many Ukrainians to rediscover the importance of humor, but it has also given stand-up comics a new purpose." - The Christian Science Monitor
"According to a report by the National Literacy Trust, the percentage of children (aged five through eight) who do not have a book of their own at home has risen by 1.9% since before the pandemic and is now at its highest point since 2019." - The Guardian
"The paintings ... were initially found by Sudanese archaeologists in 2021 while excavating the remains of the El Lagia church at el-Ga’ab depression on the west bank of the Nile. ... The works have now been documented and restored by a team of Polish researchers." - Artnet
