"According to AGMA, 100% of the paid choristers voted in favor of the authorization, with 98% of eligible members participating. Additionally, 81% of the unpaid singers scheduled to perform pledged to honor a picket line." The announced work on the program: Verdi's Requiem - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)
"The resignation, on the day before the opening concert of the season, of CFO Sylvia Romo, hired by Executive Director Roberto Treviño in January, follows a string of staff resignations, terminations and nonrenewed contracts throughout Treviño’s 14-month tenure. - San Antonio Report
“Marushchak has achieved something quite extraordinary. He has organised the evacuation of dozens of museums across Ukraine’s frontline – packing, recording, logging and counting each item and sending them to secret, secure locations away from the combat zone." - The Guardian (UK)
“Digital disinformation is a growing shadow industry. It thrives because of the weak enforcement of content-moderation policies, the increasing influence of social-media figures as political intermediaries, and a regulatory environment that fails to hold tech companies accountable.” And it’s getting worse. - The Atlantic
“The couple never meant to make political movies, Sanaeeha . ‘But in Iran, everything is political.’” (The issue here? A 70-year-old woman character doesn’t wear hijab … inside her own home.) - The Guardian (UK)
Yes, Raygun (civilian name: Dr. Rachael Gunn), the Australian academic whose singularly odd performances and (ahem) perfect score made her one of the viral sensations of the Paris Games, is — due to quirks in the rules of competitive breaking's governing body — temporarily leading the sport's rankings. - The Wall Street Journal (MSN)
The composer had seemingly appeared from nowhere. Now he was engaging the world’s best soloists to perform his music—compositions that some musicians and critics found amateurish at best and soulless at worst. - Van
This decision harms libraries. It locks them into an e-book ecosystem designed to extract as much money as possible while harvesting (and reselling) reader data en masse. It leaves local communities’ reading habits at the mercy of curatorial decisions made by four dominant publishing companies thousands of miles away. - MIT Technology Review
The organization argued that AI helps disabled or marginalized writers who don't have industry connections. As one of many now-former members put it, "It’s pretty insulting to imply that the only way members of marginalized communities can get their foot in the door is through the use of a plagiarism machine." - Slate (MSN)
Bates — who said she'll retire after finishing the title role in the reboot of the TV series Matlock — was having a very rough day (and didn't cancel) when she met reporter Alexis Soloski, who wrote frankly about what she saw and the pain the beloved actress was in. - The New York Times
In July, the board of the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras broke ties with the conductor, 11 months after he punched a singer in the face. Now Gardiner is launching the Constellation Choir and Orchestra, which in December will tour with the same program his former groups are performing without him. - The Guardian
He was the longtime general manager of the Marlboro Music Festival, Vermont's great summer school for music students, and founding artistic director of the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, which he developed into one of the busiest and most prestigious chamber music series in the country. - The Philadelphia Inquirer
The Internet Archive “is the only keeper of the internet’s first days, via the Wayback Machine. ... The archive is a huge source for Wikipedia citations, and makes a stand against publisher monopolies. Most of all? If it’s destroyed, millions and millions of cultural items could be lost to history.” - LitHub
Check the map. “Florida and Texas have the most bans in place, with 2647 and 1469 in place respectively. Thankfully the number of Little Free Libraries is higher in both states: Florida has 2886, and Texas has 2373.” - LitHub
The Grammy winner stumbled across 17th-century music by accident. “Much of this Baroque music was written by women who sang about the pain of lost loves who went off to sea. They sang of nostalgia, melancholy and passion. Many of them are also … long forgotten.” - El Pais
Turns out that punting on the use of generative AI to “win” a contest of writing 50,000 words in a month, while having a sponsor that encourages the use of AI, while claiming those who question generative AI are “classist” and “ableist” isn’t going so well. - The New York Times
Las Vegas is the largest city in the US without a major art museum; casino magnate Elaine Wynn and LACMA director Michael Govan intend to change that. The Las Vegas Museum of Art won't start out with a collection; artworks, curation, and exhibitions will come from Los Angeles. - The New York Times
"Xian Zhang was hired Thursday as music director of the Seattle Symphony, becoming the first woman conductor to head a major West Coast orchestra and filling a post that had been vacant since Thomas Dausgaard quit abruptly in January 2022. Zhang agreed to a five-year contract starting in 2025-26." - AP
"The Crown Prosecution Service said on Thursday that it decided to discontinue proceedings against Weinstein because there is 'no longer a realistic prospect of conviction.' … The CPS had previously authorized police to file the charges against Weinstein in relation to an alleged indecent assault that occurred in London in 1996." - AP
"You pay a monthly membership fee ... that entitles you to attend however much you’d like. As with a gym or a streaming service, some people may go often; some, not at all. Regardless, the orchestra receives steady revenue, and you have full control of your calendar." - The New York Times
