“Here it’s looked on with great suspicion. That drives me nuts, I have to tell you. England is a haven for culture whether it is pop culture or classical culture, literary culture, theatrical culture, this is one of the great addresses and yet we’re embarrassed by it.” - The Guardian
"Staged at a massive round table for 25 audience members, covered with 330 pounds of dried Irish peat," Luke Casserly's Distillation "is not easy to pigeonhole. It’s part TED Talk, part community-building and part campfire story, during which Casserly speaks at times in the voice of the bog." - The Washington Post (MSN)
On April 30, Kosman will flip his critic’s notebook closed for the final time, retiring from the newspaper at a crucial juncture for classical music in the Bay Area. - San Francisco Chronicle
"Emily told us to 'start walking' — all of us, in any direction, or all directions, as she and Matt called out instructions. … With everyone gradually picking up on the same gesture and then letting it transform, by the end of this ever-morphing exercise we were dancing en masse, already unified." - Literary Hub
“I confess, I had sometimes imagined my assassin rising up in some public forum or other, and coming for me in just this way. So my first thought when I saw this murderous shape rushing towards me was, ‘So it’s you. Here you are.’” - The Guardian
A consequence of the cultural obsession with self-improvement is the hyperfixation on the self. From elaborate skin care regimens to the culling of “toxic” friends from your social circle, some will go through extreme lengths in the name of self-preservation and betterment. - Vox
This inaugural list by Politics NY includes the obvious (directors of prominent institutions like the Morgan Library, Roundabout Theater, BAM, both Mets), the famous (Alan Cumming, Fran Drescher), the officials (government and union types), and the hip. - Politics NY
Buildings and facilities, mostly. There's the Grand, the $1 billion apartment/hotel/retail complex, designed by Frank Gehry, which opened across the street from (Gehry's) Disney Hall in 2022. Then there's the $100 million expansion of the Broad Museum and an addition, also designed by Gehry, to the Colburn School. - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)
"All of a sudden, TV news ... wasn’t just about war and peace, elections and Supreme Court decisions. The salacious, it turns out, rates just as well, and opinions about the news (in this case, daily arguments during the trial) were just as enticing to viewers as the news itself." - The Hollywood Reporter
"Mythical Greek figures ... are depicted on the high black walls of a large banqueting hall. … It was likely the walls' stark colour was chosen to hide the smoke deposits from lamps used during entertaining after sunset. In the shimmering light, the paintings would have almost come to life." - BBC
"Miami City Ballet management has begun an aggressive, coordinated union-busting campaign against their dancers, the majority of whom are fighting to unionize. … Furthermore, MCB management is trying to circumvent the legal process by denying their dancers the right to a union election." - American Guild of Musical Artists
Some came to Uri Berliner's defense, notably including one former senior NPR executive; others accused Berliner of using straw men or bad-faith arguments. A few pointed out that NPR's apparent lean away from conservativism in recent years is due to changes in conservatism, not NPR. - TheWrap
The five-concert tour to Guangzhou, Nanjing and Shanghai, led by outgoing music director Jaap van Zweden and running from June 27 to July 3, will be the first visit by a full U.S. orchestra to the People's Republic since 2019. - AP
