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What’s Going To Happen To The English National Opera In Manchester?

Tensions still exist between London and Manchester, and not everyone is pleased. The ENO's artistic director says, "“The way this happened was not something that anyone involved would want, and we were then forced to build the road as we drove the car.” - Manchester Evening News (UK)

When Administrators Tried To Squelch The Indiana University Student Paper, A Rival University Stepped In To Help

There’s no First Amendment right if you don’t own your own printing press, as student journalists at Indiana University learned last week when administrators fired their adviser and canceled their print edition. Purdue student journalists weren’t having it. - Bloomington Herald-Times (MSN)

The Woman Trying Her Hardest To Keep Classical Music On Track

That is, focused on the music - and out of the hands of predators. Not that she’s rewarded for it, aside from helping other people get some forms of justice. - Washington Post (Yahoo)

Traditional Arts Criticism Is In Trouble

“Today, more and more critics pay their own bills, build their own followings, and invent their own rules. ... For better and for worse, the adage “Everyone’s a critic” no longer seems like an exaggeration.” - The Atlantic (MSN)

One Big Thing We’ve Learned From Technology Is That Humans Desperately Need To Be Bored

“If you deliberately and regularly go without checking your phone, or indeed exposing yourself to any other source of electronic stimulation, you’ll build ‘the skill of boredom,’ which will enable you not only to confront life’s grand questions, but also to be less bored with ordinary life.” - Open Culture

Why Thousands Of People Are Converging On A Museum In Germany

Museum Wiesbaden is seeing an uptick - a rather large uptick - in visitors thanks to none other than Taylor Swift. - BBC

Thieves Break Into The Louvre, Steal Napoleonic Crown Jewels

“The thieves used a basket lift to access the room directly, forced a window and broke display cases to steal the jewels, before escaping on two-wheelers.” What is believed to be the Empress Eugénie’s crown, broken, was later found outside the museum. - Euro News (Yahoo)

How To Watch The ‘Olympics Of The Piano World’ From Home

Participants in the International Chopin Piano Competition “train as if they were elite athletes, with superhuman focus and skill, preparing hours of music, even though many of them end up performing only a fraction of it.” - The New York Times

Broadway Actors Have A Tentative Deal, But Musicians Still May Strike

The musicians’ local president: “We are thankful that our brothers and sisters in labor at Actors’ Equity have reached an agreement. … Local 802 is still in negotiation for a fair contract, and everything remains on the table, including a strike.” - The New York Times

NPR “Founding Mother” Susan Stamberg, 87

In 1972, as host of All Things Considered, she became the first female anchor of a nightly national newscast. She co-hosted the show for 14 years before becoming the founding host of Weekend Edition Sunday. And she inflicted her mother-in-law’s horrifying cranberry relish recipe on countless victims. - The Washington Post (MSN)

Actually, English Majors Are Thriving

At least, at the University of Minnesota: “Students come to our courses not only for practical career training but to fulfill their love of reading, passion for writing, and hunger to reflect on essential questions about who we are as individuals and communities.” - Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Chicago Arts Leaders Ask The Mayor For An Arts Leader With The ‘Gumption’ To Stand Up To The Federal Government

“My hope is that the administration continues to recognize how important artists and culture workers are to telling the story of Chicago and to making Chicago the kind of beautiful, vibrant place that we’re all fighting for.” - Chicago Sun-Times

The Arts Column That The Washington Post Refused To Run

“Monuments are supposed to be collective tributes to shared ideals. Like Confederate statues, would function as the opposite — broadcasting a one-way message.”  - Aesthetic Insecurity

Cleveland State University Just Closed A Decades-Old College Radio Station For No Apparent Reason

“A student-run radio station trains kids to do all sorts of things. It’s the engineering, it’s the on air, it’s the music, it’s the running it, the managing of it. And it’s all gone now.” - Cleveland Plain Dealer

Why Is San Francisco About To Destroy This 96-Year-Old Artist’s Defining Work?

“Destroying the Vaillancourt Fountain, its supporters say, would be erasing history and modern architecture, and counter to the city’s reputation for being weird.” But wow, has the city neglected it for years. (The city says it just sort of aged out. Yup.) - The New York Times

Pepperdine Suddenly Closes Art Show After Censorship Of Some Work Leads Other Artists To Withdraw

One artist wrote that the private university's censorship of other artists’ work, mostly about immigrants, “is a loss for the students and for the art community, and it signals that the gallery, under current conditions, can no longer function as a place for art.” - Hyperallergic

Diane Keaton Has Died At 79

Keaton was the star of Annie Hall, for which she won an Oscar, and many other Woody Allen movies; she was also an Oscar nominee for Reds, Marvin’s Room, and Something’s Gotta Give. And then there were her iconic roles in the Godfather movies. - The Hollywood Reporter

Senior Vice President TMC Arts – The Music Center working with Management Consultants for the Arts

The Music Center seeks an inspiring and strategic individual to lead its cultural programming division, TMC Arts. Reporting directly to the president & CEO..

László Krasznahorkai Wins Nobel Prize For Literature

“Often described as postmodern, Krasznahorkai is known for his long, winding sentences, dystopian and melancholic themes, and the kind of relentless intensity that has led critics to compare him to Gogol, Melville and Kafka. Satantango, was famously adapted into a seven-hour film by director Béla Tarr.” - The Guardian

Did The Postwar Modernists Ruin The Whole Idea Of New Classical Music For Everyone Else?

Countless casual classical listeners will tell you they hate the “new stuff.” When asked for an example, they’ll cite some highly dissonant music written between 40 and 80 years ago — in a “modern” style which hasn’t been dominant in contemporary classical music (in North America, at least) for decades. - The New York Times
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