“There’s a lot underwater, but what we’re able to bring up is limited, it’s only specific material according to strict criteria. The rest will remain part of our sunken heritage.” - ARTnews
At the peak of her career, aged 50, she was effectively banned from the stages of Europe, following Russia’s full-scale illegal invasion of Ukraine. Three years on, as nightly Russian bombardments of Ukrainian cities continue, Netrebko is due to return to London to play Tosca at Covent Garden. - The Observer
There is a seismic shift happening in the media landscape, fueled by the rise of digital platforms, declining print readership and mass layoffs in cultural journalism. It also points to a larger epidemic in the consumption of this kind of writing, and how people engage with this industry wide. - The Observer
It’s because there are cis men doing the cheerleading alongside the women — and the Minnesota Vikings squad has become the primary target, despite the fact that several other teams have had men on their squads for years. (Not to mention that, until World War II, cheerleading was done mostly by men.) - Vox (MSN)
A White House official described the exchange as productive and cordial and confirmed that White House senior associate Lindsey Halligan — who was tasked with enacting Trump’s March executive order on the Smithsonian — attended. - Washington Post (Yahoo)
As organizations respond to declining revenue and higher prices, expense budgets tightened by an average of 23%. This decrease includes significant dips in both personnel and non-personnel expenses for the first time since 2021. - SMUDataArts
Nine literary festivals parted ways with investment company Baillie Gifford last summer amid controversy over its involvement with fossil fuels and companies that operate in Israel, with the events industry having faced other major changes post-pandemic such as the rise of theatre-style tours. - The Bookseller
“Broadway musicals overwhelmingly focus on historical or fictional events; it’s exceptionally rare for an actress to cultivate a long relationship with a subject that she will embody through pop ballads and box steps. Especially one who’s investing in her project.” - The New York Times
Over the past several decades, philanthropy has become much more bureaucratic: if you want a grant from one of these well-endowed foundations, you have to be willing to navigate a large bureaucracy while specifying all of the legible ways in which your activity will have provable impact. - Palladium
"Freedom is neither a fixed idea nor a story of progress toward a predetermined goal. The history of American freedom is a tale of debates and struggles. Often, battles for control of the idea illustrate the contrast between the “negative” and “positive” meanings of freedom." - The Nation
Whatever the fate of modern DEI programs in corporate America, diversity of experience, thought, and ideology is a meritorious goal for a company to pursue. Done right, it will be good for business. - The Atlantic
You may not recognize the term, but you use pragmatics all the time; we all do. John McWhorter explains what exactly they are, and he predicted that when AI programs started incorporating pragmatics properly, chatbots would start become convincing to human users. - The New York Times
“Even as the subjects reported trusting online content less after the quiz, they still ranked (Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany’s largest circulation broadsheet daily) highly and turned to it more after being confronted with a quiz that showed how difficult it can be to tell fake from real.” - Nieman Lab
He and his wife, the Bolshoi ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, were high culture’s power couple in the late Soviet era; his works were staples of the repertoire. After the USSR fell, interest in Shchedrin’s music soared in Russia and abroad, where it was championed by Mstislav Rostropovich and Lorin Maazel. - The New York Times
