It’s like an invisible tax levied on our communities that we pay civically, cognitively and sometimes even literally, in the form of higher local bond prices due to more wasteful government spending. Increasingly, this invisible tax is being silently levied by Big Tech. - NiemanLab
The Pittsburgh-based foundation is ending grants for one-time projects and for individual artists in favor of funding arts organizations and cultural infrastructure in the region. - WESA (Pittsburgh)
Spotify’s chief executive has defended the company’s move into AI-generated music, claiming it offers users and creators a better alternative to piracy and unregulated AI slop. - The Guardian
The fire on September 2, 2018, began with an electrical issue, but it spiraled out of control when the hydrants next to the building proved to be dry. According to a 160-page report, the museum had been chronically underfunded for years, and a whistleblower had warned of fire risk as early as 2004. - Smithsonian
He was the last of the Mohicans1 — an essential piece of jazz’s midcentury-modern picture, the only surviving subject in Art Kane’s iconic yearbook photograph A Great Day in Harlem. But longevity is just one factor at play. - The Gig (Nate Chinen)
After posting an operating loss of $10.6 million (US$7.6 million) in 2024, the company — boosted by a 29% increase in ticket sales — posted a small net operating deficit and, after a contribution from the Opera Australia Capital Fund, broke even for 2025. - Limelight (Australia)
“The news arrived (in September 2025) with both excitement and a pang of grief: The oldest national history museum in the Americas was slated to partially (and temporarily) reopen for the first time since a 2018 fire destroyed more than 16 million objects — 80 percent of its collections.” - Smithsonian Magazine
“Across a more-than-six-decade playing career, he recorded albums for the Chiaroscuro label, took requests from Nancy Reagan at the White House, delighted audiences at Wolf Trap and maintained a long-running association with the Smithsonian Institution, delivering song-filled lectures on American music that were broadcast around the country.” - The Washington Post (Yahoo!)
“What people don’t know about the process is that when the old cast is done, on their final day, usually a Sunday, the new cast comes in on a Tuesday,” director Carisa Barreca says. “That night, the new cast has to put up a show — the old show.” - WBEZ (Chicago)
“Mounting a play in the West End now requires between £1 million and £2 million pounds in upfront investment, while staging a musical requires between £3 million and £10 million. This is before weekly costs" — £120,000 to £200,000 before royalties for a play and £300,000 to £400,000 for a musical. - WhatsOnStage (UK)
Highland Farm, just outside Doylestown in Bucks County, was where Hammerstein wrote the words for many of the musicals he created with Richard Rodgers. It is now the site of the Oscar Hammerstein Museum and Theatre Education Center, which plans to rebuild the barn as an exhibition space and education center. - PhillyVoice
The city's most respected chamber music venue has seen a 25% increase year-on-year in ticket sales since it left the funding portfolio of Arts Council England, artistic director John Gilhooly said. - The Stage
One can learn quite a bit by noticing which English words and phrases had no Cherokee equivalent — and in how translators chose to render those words and phrases in Cherokee. - The Conversation
Some blame technology, particularly smartphones and social media. Others blame a kind of 21st-century weltschmerz—a sadness about the state of the world and our uncertain future in it. - The Atlantic
“The houses leaned into spectacle — including a promotional video featuring Nicole Kidman dancing around a bronze Brancusi head — and prearranged deals … that reduced their risk. The result was a season with a few flashy records — and … a broader return to deliberate bidding, quality material and logical prices.” - The New York Times
