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A Second Animal-Themed Banksy Emerges In London

This one is "two elephants reaching towards each other from blocked-out windows” in Chelsea. - The Guardian (UK)

Marianna Martines, A Phenom In The 18th Century, Comes To Lincoln Center

“Martines began her remarkable career at just 16. At 38, she became the first female composer programmed by the Society of Musicians, whose elite concert series also gave Beethoven his Viennese performance debut. But after her death, in 1812, Martines’s music mostly fell silent.” - The New York Times

Walter Arlen, Who Fled The Holocaust And Became A Composer, Has Died At 103

Arlen was “a Viennese musical prodigy who fled to the United States after Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938 and became a music critic and a late-in-life composer of Holocaust and Jewish-exile remembrances in song.” - The New York Times

The Artist Jailed By Putin For Five Tiny Pieces Of Paper

Sasha Skochilenko, released in the multi-country, multi-person prisoner swap, was serving seven years for substituting price tags in a grocery store with messages like, “The Russian Army bombed an art school in Mariupol where about 400 people were seeking shelter.” - The Atlantic (MSN)

Banksy’s Newest In London Is A Black Goat

Why? It’s a mystery. “A Banksy fan who raced to the artwork’s location as soon as it was revealed on social media said she thinks it’s a commentary on humans destroying the natural world.” - ARTnews

Women Of Color Are Losing Ground In Hollywood

The Annenberg report: Of the top 100 2023 films, the numbers are grim - from the 99 that had no Native or Pacific Islander women to the 39 without Black women. Why the backsliding? - HuffPost

Miami’s Small Arts Organizations Slash Their Budgets And Search For Life Rafts After DeSantis’s Veto Of State Funding

"Arts organizations across Miami-Dade County have been left to their own devices ... to deal with the cuts in funding, and in many cases, that means making cuts of their own. … Arts groups in the county are nevertheless discussing ways to collaborate and make their resources go further together." - The Miami Times

If You Want Your Broadway Show To Do Well, You’ll Need To Capture The Influencers

How did The Great Gatsby get excitement for its cast album flowing? TikTok, of course - and also YouTube, Instagram, and X/Twitter, not to mention a party for influencers on all of these channels. Brand strategy: Snag the kids now, and it’ll pay off later. - The New York Times

Meet Mourad Merzouki, Choreographer Of The Olympics’ Official Dance Showcase

No, this doesn't mean the breaking competition. This is free performance before 13,500 spectators at the Trocadéro Champions Park, where the Algerian-French hip-hop choreographer's latest work combined hip-hop with circus arts, visual arts and martial arts. - AP

They Asked AI To Write A Stand-Up Show

One program delivered lazy, sexist jokes and couldn’t be trained out of its ways. So that’s going great - but researchers keep saying it will improve. - BBC

Yuval Sharon Will Stage Metropolitan Opera’s Next “Ring” Cycle And “Tristan”

Sharon’s Tristan und Isolde opens March 9, 2026 with Lise Davidsen as Isolde. The Ring begins with Das Rheingold in spring 2028, continues with Die Walküre and Siegfried in 2028-29, and culminates with Gotterdämmerung in 2029-30. Davidsen will sing Brünnhilde, and there will be complete cycles in the spring of 2030. - AP

Ella Jenkins Revolutionized Music For Children, And At 100, She’s Not Finished Yet

“Jenkins captivated her listeners because she presented music not as lessons but as play. A charismatic performer whose accompaniment often consisted of only a baritone ukulele and some percussion, she encouraged her young audiences not to sit still but to get up and move.” - The New York Times

Chimpanzees Have Back-And-Forth Conversations Much Like Humans Do

"Researchers analysed thousands of gestures made by wild chimps in east Africa and found striking similarities with the turn-taking seen in human conversations, in particular how swiftly the apes responded to one another." - The Guardian

Let’s Chat About That Abbott Elementary Dance

“To be dancing in the spotlight for that long, and also making sure it’s funny,” says actor Janelle James. But she was also considering "how the song affects people, particularly Black women. ... A lot of thought went into that little dance.” - Los Angeles Times (AOL)

How On Earth Does One Write A Musical About Particle Physics?

David Henry Hwang wondered that, too. Yet he's part of an impressive team working on a show about the Large Hadron Collider and the discovery of the Higgs boson. "It took a year to get my head around how to tell this story," Hwang said. - The New York Times

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