Machover’s brilliant new half-hour orchestral score asks AI for agency. It does so by treating the technology as stupid, musicians as creative artists and the audience as capable of opening its collective mind. It handles democracy not as a done deal, but a series of scary questions — and doesn’t trust the heartless machines for answers. - Los Angeles...
“(The painting) Near Abiquiu was previously only known from a 1931 photograph. It laid hidden under a row of fur coats for nearly 40 years, until a woman known only by her middle name, Betsy, was helping her now-deceased aunt, an accomplished former Foreign Service worker, prepare for hospice.” - Artnet
While Gustavo Dudamel was the orchestra’s music and artistic director, incoming music director Daniel Harding, who starts next fall, will split responsibilities with creative director (a new title) Esa-Pekka Salonen and conductor-in-residence Anna Handler. On Wednesday, the orchestra also announced new artistic chairs for jazz, Latin music, and new music. - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)
In an unsigned announcement posted on its website, Salon said that the “business realities of independent digital journalism” had changed profoundly and that “our publishing model is no longer sustainable.” - The New York Times
"Philippe Jaenada, who won the Prix Goncourt on Tuesday for L’Inconnue du quai de Javel (The Unknown Woman of the Quai de Javel), told France Inter radio on Wednesday that he had turned to AI ‘three times’ while writing it.” - The Guardian
“An agreement has not yet been reached and could still fall apart, but the companies have entered into exclusive negotiations. … The Times would acquire the controlling stake in Letterboxd from Tiny, a Canadian-based company which originally picked up a 60% stake in 2023 when the website was valued at just $50 million.” - IndieWire
“Six Picasso prints stolen from a restaurant near Cannes have been recovered after a month-long police investigation. The works were stolen from L’Amandier in Mougins in the early hours of 1 October, when two masked men allegedly broke in through a French door.” - Riviera Radio
“The American conductor is currently in his third season as Music Director at the Orchestre National de Lille and fourth as Chief Conductor of the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra. … He will take up the (BBC) post (in Manchester) in September 2028 on an initial 5-year contract, succeeding John Storgårds.” - Gramophone
Director Milo Rau’s documentary staging of the trial of Pelicot’s husband, who repeatedly drugged her and invited men to rape her, will be produced and livestreamed by the Young Vic, with a cast including Kate Winslet, Brian Cox, Indira Varma, Tobias Menzies, Rosie O'Donnell, Suzy Eddie Izzard, Juliet Stevenson, and others. - WhatsOnStage (UK)
Attending a concert is no longer always just a night out. With the rise of music residencies and select-city tours, artists can save on travel costs while fans are shelling out for what's being sold as the trip of a lifetime. - CBC
She didn’t specify a reason in the announcement she made on social media, though she did state that she would keep her concert dates, which she made sure to list on her post. - Opera Now
The question at stake was how Russian composers could create their own tradition while drawing on established European musical culture. - The Conversation
Restorers working on the recently-completed cleaning of The Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel have deduced that Michelangelo crafted his own special paintbrushes with multiple heads so that he could paint parallel lines quickly — and that he used them for crosshatched strokes that give the fresco a singular dynamism. - Artnet
Just 9 percent of respondents accepted the use of AI in museum shows. Nineteen percent were unbothered by the notion that AI could used for brainstorming but not exhibition texts, meanwhile, and 29 percent said they felt no reservations about the usage of AI to write emails sent by museum officials. - ARTnews
