After trying for a month, "more than 100 young artists, teachers and their relatives affiliated with the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, a celebrated school that became a target of the Taliban," finally escaped, heading for Portugal. - The New York Times
Smith, who backed Gladys Knight and Dionne Warwick, formed his own quartet, and collaborated with hundreds of others, said the organ was "sunshine, rainbows, the rain, the wind, the storm, the flowers. ... It’s like sitting in a spaceship and you don’t know where you’re going." - Washington Post
"If you see 45 gestures, made independently, strung together with various musicality and rhythms, against a beautiful song, and then the same gestures juxtaposed to a speech about civil rights, are they the same gestures? And I say they are and they are not." - Time
For this to work, "museums need to acknowledge NFTs as a natural step in the evolution of contemporary art in sync with our digitally driven lives, whose emergence has only been catalysed by the pandemic." - Hyperallergic
The Romanian "embodied an ideal of the complete musician in his roles as composer, virtuoso violinist and pianist, conductor, teacher and generous mentor to younger artists." And the country attracted 32 orchestras from 14 countries for the 25th Enescu Fest. - The New York Times
Can adding 21 members, six of whom are Black, solve the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's PR issues? "While some within the organization believe that the Globes could still be resurrected for 2022, many outside the group ... remain skeptical that it is truly committed to change." - Los Angeles Times
"After only one show, Aladdin was paused again because COVID-19 cases were detected within the company." Testing allowed the show to resume for one more performance before multiple new positive tests led to a two-week shutdown. - CBS
In addition to hosting Doctor Who and other shows, "the city has previously doubled up as New York for productions including Harry Potter prequel Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Channel 4 hit series It's A Sin." - BBC
In 2020, in Washington, D.C.'s Lafayette Square, fencing to prevent protests was covered with artwork - and it all "became a symbol for the movement, a place where people stopped and took pictures, honoring what the fence and its signs stood for." - NPR
"Hollywood couldn’t function without the set builders, costume designers, video engineers and other behind-the-scenes workers who keep the lights on and cameras rolling for the stars." Very true, and a strike vote is ongoing this weekend. - Washington Post
But now it seems to be more prevalent than ever - in part because paying for all of the streaming services you might want costs a lot more than a pretty penny. - The Guardian (UK)
A founder of the Impossible Ragtime Theater, and a icon at La MaMa over decades, he infused theatre with music (especially jazz) and reimagined classic theatre with "startling new interpretations." - The New York Times
