“New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has approved a state budget that increases the cap on the state’s film and TV subsidy to $800 million, nearly double the amount from 2022. The expansion creates a $100 million pool earmarked solely for independent projects.” - The Hollywood Reporter
“The performers’ major concern was a wage increase. David Kolen, a senior business representative at Actors Equity Association, said the performers have taken a major step towards earning living wages with a five-year contract that will yield 35% increases that compound out to 40.5% ‘over the duration of the deal.’” - WBEZ (Chicago)
“Hollyhock House, Frank Lloyd Wright’s eclectic Los Angeles masterpiece, is under threat of closure and losing its UNESCO World Heritage Site status amid drastic budget cuts proposed by the city’s mayor Karen Bass.” - Artnet
The 72-year-old South Korean-born, US-trained conductor has appeared at the Milan opera house more often than any other guest conductor, going back to 1989. He succeeds Riccardo Chailly in the fall of 2026, and his initial term runs to 2030. - Bachtrack
“The actor, 76, has been convicted of having groped a 54-year-old set dresser and a 34-year-old assistant during the filming of Les Volets Verts (‘The Green Shutters’).” He received a suspended sentence of 18 months’ imprisonment and fined €29,040 (around $32,350). - AP
There are many in the humanities, and even more outside the humanities, who would argue that what is important to assess are thoughts, ideas, creative capacity itself, and that being nitpicky about ChatGPT wrongly shifts the focus to what is essentially just a matter of words. - The Point
“There’s something we noticed the year and months after Covid: There were fewer American films in the world; therefore local production –national production–became more successful.” - Deadline
Their outputs are a mélange of the passion and experimentalism of the amateurs with the polish and ambition of the pros, and they often possess a briskness that feels shaped by an awareness that an endless selection of other stories is mere clicks away. - The New Yorker
“Right now, there are no education goals for the country,” said Arne Duncan, who served as President Barack Obama’s first secretary of education after running Chicago’s public school system. “There are no metrics to measure goals, there are no strategies to achieve those goals and there is no public transparency.” - The New York Times
In some ways we’re moving backwards from the model of the lay reader versus professional literary critic. Today there are far fewer lay readers than there used to be, but there is also the emergence of extremely invested, specialized nonacademic reader communities enabled by social media, for example. - The Point
Festival lineups are jam-packed with D.J.s, while some of the biggest names in pop music (including Beyoncé, Drake and Charli XCX) have made dance music-inspired or adjacent albums. It’s usually at this point — when a newspaper sees fit to write about it — that the comedown starts. - The New York Times
The Chinese crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun and the American entertainment executive David Geffen are slinging written accusations at each other in federal court in New York, each claiming to be the rightful owner of Alberto Giacometti’s “Le Nez” (“The Nose”). - The New York Times
New piano sales fell from a pre-Covid peak of 400,000 in 2019 to 200,000 in 2022. China’s imports of pianos—mainly high-end instruments for conservatory and professional use–fell from a 2021 peak of US$272 million to $197 million in 2023. - Asia Times
”The competition feels stiffer (perhaps oversaturated), though artists searching for opportunities during the audition season—typically winter through spring—are finding community through research and collective commiseration.” - American Theatre
