Stories

Los Angeles Times Is Losing Horrifying Amounts Of Money

“The business made a loss from operations of $41.8m in the year ending 29 December 2024 and a total net loss before taxes of $48.1m. This followed a reported loss of more than $30m in 2023. In the (first half of) this year, the (newspaper) made a further $17.3m loss from operations.” - Press Gazette (UK)

Gramophone Awards 2025: Simon Rattle Sets A Record, Pichon’s Bach Wins Record Of The Year

The British conductor is the first person ever to win Gramophone’s Artist of the Year award twice. The Record of the Year prize went to the Pygmalion/Raphaël Pichon release of Bach’s Mass in B minor. Awards were made in 17 additional categories. - The Guardian

Kansas City Symphony Abruptly Fires Its Chorus Director

Members of the orchestra’s volunteer chorus received an email from management notifying them of the “difficult but necessary development” just hours before a performance last Friday. Bruffy also leads the Grammy-winning professional choir the Kansas City Chorale, which is making no comment on the matter. - The Kansas City Star

Soprano Roberta Alexander Dead At 76

Active as a concert singer as well as in opera, she was for some years a mainstay at the Met, Covent Garden, Salzburg, Glyndebourne, and especially the Netherlands Opera. She was known for Mozart, Verdi, and Puccini as well as a landmark portrayal of the title role in Janáček’s Jenůfa. - Moto Perpetuo

Tim Curry At 79, Looking Forward Even After His Stroke

The actor who brought so much manic energy to Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Rocky Horror), Wadsworth the butler (Clue), and Pennywise the clown (Stephen King’s It) talks about his career, his recovery, and his mother (on whom Curry based Dr. Frank-N-Furter’s exit from the refrigerator with the bloody axe). - The Guardian

Study: Libraries Draw People To Downtown

A recent study published by the Urban Libraries Council explores the idea that libraries can draw people to city centers that have been suffering from the lingering effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. - Bloomberg

Actors’ Equity UK Threatens Mass Action Over AI Companies’ Unauthorized Use Of Actors’ Images

“The warning came as … growing numbers of (union) members made complaints about infringements of their copyright and misuse of their personal data in AI material. … Last week (Equity) confirmed its was supporting a Scottish actor who believes her image was used in the creation of ‘AI actor’ Tilly Norwood.” - The Guardian

Toledo Museum’s Adam Levine On The Future Of Museums

"I have yet to meet someone who really believes that there will be less digital or AI in the world 10 years from now than there is today. It’s not a question of if, but when." - ARTnews

“Hamilton” Grosses Its Biggest-Ever Broadway Box Office

Notably, the tally of $4.042 million comes outside of the holiday season, when shows typically see their highest grosses and slightly bests Hamilton’s previous high of $4.041 million, which was set in 2018 in the Christmas week. - The Hollywood Reporter

Oregon Launches A Rethink On Support For Non-Profit Arts

“The goal is to create a unified strategy and list of priorities to present with the Legislature to support the arts, culture, and humanities going forward,” CACO Senior Advisor Sue Hildick told Oregon ArtsWatch. - Oregon Arts Watch

In Extremely Rare Move, Met Opera Schedules More Performances Of “Kavalier & Clay” For This Season

The Mason Bates/Gene Scheer opera, whose ticket sales improved for each performance of this fall’s run (the last two selling out, despite widely divergent reviews), is being brought back for four performances this February. Only one other time in its modern history has the company added shows mid-season. - Playbill

Observation: Young Actors Trained During Pandemic Have Trouble Projecting Their Voices

Young actors who trained at drama school during the pandemic are struggling to project their voices and lack range because they were denied the crucial “experience of full vocal and physical presence” within a theatre, the co-artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) has said. - The Guardian

Indigenous Artists Use Augmented Reality To Overlay Images At Metropolitan Museum

Using augmented reality (AR), the artists intervened in the gallery’s 19th-century paintings—generic and imagined landscapes, portraits of affluent settlers and grandiose historical scenes—digitally superimposing cosmological figures, pow-wow dancers and suffocating layers of ivy. - The Art Newspaper

Artists Plan Nationwide Protests

The protests, known collectively as Fall of Freedom, will take place on the weekend of Nov. 21. Organizers, including the visual artist Dread Scott and the playwright Lynn Nottage, describe the effort as “an urgent call to the arts community to unite in defiance of authoritarian forces sweeping the nation.”

Colm Tóibín: Why I Set Up A Press To Publish László Krasznahorkai (And The Question I Shouldn’t Have Asked)

“In 2006, when I came home all enthusiastic about his work, he still had no UK publisher. ... The view in London was that he was too difficult; no publisher could take the risk.” (The ill-chosen question was at the Edinburgh Book Festival five years later.) - The Guardian

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