Sales at Sotheby’s and Christie’s were down for the second year in a row in 2024. With both supply and demand for big-ticket art in a slump, the auction houses are making major bets on selling luxury goods and niche experiences to make up the shortfall. - The New York Times
Over the past few years, the British-born Harding has led dual, and often dueling, careers: conducting Mozart and Mahler symphonies one day, piloting commercial flights to Paris, Milan, Stockholm and Tunis the next. - The New York Times
With National Theatre Wales having folded last month, leaving the principality without a flagship English-language stage company, Sheen has decided to launch a new one, called Welsh National Theatre, with himself as artistic director and the first production planned for autumn 2026. - The Guardian
Though the station, CAI, and its listeners raised the money to renovate the historic building, both real estate and broadcasting license are owned by Boston station GBH, which is facing serious money problems and staff layoffs. GBH sold CAI's building without telling anyone at CAI, and the community is furious. - Nieman Lab
He created 31 productions for the Vienna State Opera (some still in use) and 16 for the Met, attracting scorn from revisionists and admiration from traditionalists. "All the secrets of Wagner's Ring," he once said, "should be guessed by the audience or found by the audience." - AP
"Theodore Farnsworth, the former CEO of MoviePass parent Helios & Matheson Analytics, pleaded guilty to charges of defrauding and conspiring to defraud investors in two public companies, including lying about artificial intelligence capabilities that it didn’t have." - Deadline
The department store chain has definitively decided to close its historic Philadelphia location, making the future of the world's largest fully-functioning musical instrument uncertain. But the store's Grand Court, including the organ, has protected landmark status. - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
"(The move) follows years of campaigning by politicians, musicians and the theatre industry to stop professional 'resellers' hoovering up tickets at the expense of fans and selling them on for huge mark-ups in alliance with platforms such as Viagogo and StubHub, which take a cut of the profits." - The Guardian
"(She was) a beauty queen, singer and wholesome pitchwoman for Florida orange juice whose crusade against gay rights in the 1970s transformed her into one of the most polarizing figures in American public life." - The Washington Post (MSN)
BookTok, Science Fiction & Fantasy, and the indomitable Richard Osman led Fiction, with the category accounting for the year’s top five titles, 16 of the top 20 and 32 of the top 50. - The Bookseller
Artifacts found at the tombs included bronze coins with the image of Alexander the Great dating to the Time of Ptolemy I (367-283), children’s toys made of clay, cartonnage and funerary masks that covered mummies, winged scarabs, beads and funerary amulets. - APNews
I’ve been waiting years for the emergence of a bold timber architecture with designs that take advantage of the material’s expressive personality, its strength and malleability, its ability to support immense burdens or be worked in fine filigree, to form great blocks and stiff walls or else to bend like reeds. - New York Magazine (MSN)
"Mexicans began observing that Emilia Pérez was a film about Mexico where just one main actor was Mexican, made by a French director who speaks no Spanish, shot in France, scripted with unnatural-sounding dialogue, and heavy with stereotypes. Comments online were by turns amused and annoyed, but also baffled." - The Guardian
The very precise way he used his hand helped communicate to players across the arena of an orchestra exactly where they were in the bar and exactly what he wanted. He had also a fantastic ear and the ability to hear things with great precision, which also affects enormously the way people play. - The Guardian
