In a five-decade career, "the Juilliard-trained Schickele generated agreeably melodic chamber music, vocal works, symphonic scores and film soundtracks. But he drew his greatest acclaim as a comedic maestro who created, performed, wrote about and lectured on the pseudo-classical and baroque music of the fictional P.D.Q. Bach." - The Washington Post (MSN)
"Members of the Musicians’ Union and Equity will walk out on February 1. … Members of both unions have voted in favour of strikes after they accused the ENO management of planning to make chorus, orchestra and music staff redundant and re-employ them for only six months a year." - The Independent (UK)
Their petition reads, "The German state has intensified the repression of its own Palestinian population and those who stand against Israel’s war crimes. ... Palestine solidarity protests are mislabeled as anti-Semitic and banned, activist spaces are raided by police, and violent arrests are frequent." - Hyperallergic
Stop clapping so much! Stop drinking so much! Don't use your phone's flashlight to find your seats! And for pity's sake, stop eating potato chips during a movie or play! (And other possibly cranky advice from critics.) - The Guardian (UK)
"Tech companies scrape the work of artists and writers to their benefit without consent or compensation, turning anyone who has ever had the audacity to post anything to the internet — including a 6-year-old — into grist for their mill." - Los Angeles Times
The Austrian conductor, now 63, announced that he will not renew his current contract when it expires at the end of the 2026-27 season. By that point he will be, at 25 years, the longest-serving music director in the orchestra's history. - Cleveland.com
"There was once a transgressive appeal to the Santos persona. … It was the inappropriateness of his high status that made him amusing. Now that he’s been brought low, viral fame supplies no tension for a Santos character. There is nothing transgressive about a grifter on Cameo." - The New York Times
"Alsop, 67, was music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra from 2007-08 through 2020-21, the first woman to lead a top-level American orchestra. She agreed to a three-year term with the Philadelphia Orchestra starting with a 2024 tour of China." - AP
Sure, Google Translate can help out with ordering a coffee in another language, but "neural machine-translation models can translate only about 30 percent of novel excerpts—usually simple passages—with acceptable quality, as determined by native speakers." - The Atlantic
Acocella, who wrote of dance, culture, and more for The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books for decades, "was often mischievous and always delicious," says her editor at the NYRB. - The New York Times
The ARChive of Contemporary Music "reportedly holds some of the world’s biggest collections of Broadway, African, punk, jazz, country and western, folk, hip hop, and experimental recordings" - and it's in trouble. - Wired
"(Her) effervescence and crackling husky voice — which she attributed to 'slightly twisted' vocal cords that permitted the air to hit 'the soprano and the contralto at the same time' — made her a distinctive presence in nearly 60 films, dozens of TV appearances and scores of theatrical productions." - The Washington Post (MSN)
Under Wayne Brown, the company "has placed itself at the center of operatic conversation, … broken fund-raising records, (and) drawn first-time ticket buyers by the thousands," writes David Allen. What's more, says Deborah Borda, "He has a kind word for all, which is quite unusual in our business." - The New York Times
In the US, Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, Brecht's Threepenny Opera, Virginia Woolf's Orlando, and Dreyer's Passion of Joan of Arc. In the EU, Canada, and Latin America, works by Dylan Thomas, Django Reinhardt, and Hank Williams. In most of Asia and Africa, everything by Picasso and Tolkien. - The Public Domain Review
Racism at work? Depends on what exactly one means by racism, and where — because the Metro Nashville Arts Commission reversed the new funding model, and the grants allocated under it a month previously, on the advice of its legal department. - The Tennessean (Nashville)
Even more arguments about appropriation. Parasocial aesthetics. (Yes, there's a definition of that.) Art that's about trying to outfox or even break AI. And there's more … - Artnet
Ben Davis: "I always say: Futurology is mainly people telling you what corporations are already doing. Here, I’m trying to avoid predictions like, 'art gets more interactive' or 'limitless content-on-demand,' because obviously that is just restating the proposition generative A.I. is being sold on." - Artnet
"For the most part, though, being a theater critic has been an extraordinary privilege. How many people have the opportunity to be transported by an actor’s performance or a playwright’s words or a composer’s music, and then be able to do something about it?" - The Washington Post (MSN)
"'It's so bizarre to me,' says the Last Comic Standing finalist Laurie Kilmartin. 'Because when you look at how modern standup started, it was a thing that happened in between strippers. It’s gutter art. We’re not trying to win a Pulitzer Prize.'" - The Guardian
One of the Japan-born ethnic Koreans who emigrated to North Korea in the 1970s, Kim Ju-sŏng lived there for 28 years, working as a novelist for the Korean Workers' Party's propaganda department (the only permitted career path) and getting lousy evaluations before escaping to the South. - The Guardian
