"Conductor Yuriy Kerpatenko declined to take part in a concert 'intended by the occupiers to demonstrate the so-called ‘improvement of peaceful life’ in Kherson,'" according to Kiev's culture ministry. - The Guardian (UK)
Or rather, on the glass protecting it. "'What is worth more, art or life?' said one of the activists. ... 'Is it worth more than food? More than justice? Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection of our planet and people?'" - The Guardian (UK)
Zachary Woolfe: "Any judgment on a hall's acoustics is highly provisional after just a few visits. ... But a mighty improvement is already obvious. ... (And) a theater in which it once felt like miles from the back row to the timpanis now verges on intimacy." - The New York Times
Wesley Morris: "The gutter is where our popular culture began, and the gaminess lurking there is our truest guise. ... Trash is a persistent, consumptive force that'll set up shop in any eager host. And its shamelessness went and found a new home, in American politics." - The New York Times Magazine
The institution of an orchestra was built for another time. In an age of attacks against institutions, perhaps it's necessary to tweak how the institution works. - The American Scholar
"It's the eternal problem where you make a deep, instinctual connection with something ... but then you move through it, you put it out there, ... and then we go through this process where somehow the person that it's moved through has to make sense of it." - The New York Times Magazine
In terms of the music-making, Justin Davidson observes, Blanchett and filmmaker Todd Field do very well. But Lydia Tár's awful behavior? She could've gotten away with much of it decades ago, but not now. And, alas, no female conductor has yet had the opportunity for anything like Tár's career. - Vulture
Lansbury was the winner of five Tony Awards for her starring performances on the New York stage, from “Mame” in 1966 to “Blithe Spirit” in 2009, when she was 83, a testament to her extraordinary stamina. Yet she appeared on Broadway only from time to time over a seven-decade career. - The New York Times
Rivka Galchen looks into the development of acoustical engineering as a craft (which goes all the way back to Chichén Itzá and Hagia Sophia) and how Christopher Blair and Paul Scarbrough of the firm Akustiks approached the challenge of a venue that had seemed acoustically cursed. - The New Yorker
Lina Gónzalez-Granados was 5 "when she joined a 'tuna' — a musical group traditionally made up of college students who ... stand in a semi-circle wielding Spanish guitars of various sizes and shapes and singing ballads." That was her first lesson in the physical nature of music. - Los Angeles Times
Turns out that, as long suspected, Girl with a Flute is not by Vermeer. "Thanks to new combinations of scientific analysis, art historical insight and informed looking, a vexing, long-standing problem has been resolved." - Washington Post
For one thing, "New York has yet to see tourism fully rebound, and attendance at many performing arts organizations has lagged. The reconfigured hall is seen as an opportunity to try to lure old concertgoers back, and to bring new audiences in." - The New York Times
"It is a white-owned and white-run institution with a self-described mission to 'preserve, protect and perpetuate' one of the nation's greatest Black cultural legacies. ... A place where all the knotty questions of race and culture ... that face New Orleans and all of America are on blaring display." - The New York Times Magazine
“Increasing demand for content from streaming services and social media make iconic music IP a scarce and irreplaceable asset,” said Angelo Rufino, a managing partner at Brookfield, pointing to how music is being licensed to Peloton, TikTok and the metaverse. - The Wall Street Journal
Michael Andor Brodeur: "I can at least say without getting too subjective or getting in any trouble that the difference in sound is immediate and arresting. ... Not once did I find myself leaning forward in my seat or squinting with my ears. The sound finds you." - The Washington Post
"Ernaux, 82, started out writing autobiographical novels, but quickly abandoned fiction in favor of memoirs. Her more than 20 books, most very short, chronicle events in her life and the lives of those around her. They present uncompromising portraits of sexual encounters, abortion, illness and the deaths of her parents." - AP
Why do faculty speak so differently about things that happen in their house as opposed to everyone else’s? Understanding this dynamic might help us begin to answer the question at the root of the inequities in American higher education: How can a system run by liberals be so conservative? - The Atlantic
"In signing SB1116 into law on Thursday, Sept. 29, Gov. Gavin Newsom created the Performing Arts Equitable Payroll Fund, which would reimburse small performing arts organizations for large portions of their payroll costs. The smaller a company’s budget, the more the fund would reimburse." - San Francisco Chronicle
On the same day that he won a Gramophone Award for Lifetime Achievement, the conductor and pianist announced, "My health has deteriorated over the last months, and I have been diagnosed with a serious neurological condition. I must now focus on my physical well-being as much as possible." - BBC
How did a simple offer, over a single painting, lead to such a spectacular destruction of someone’s life and career? The answer involves the shifting sands of American corporate life, as newly activist staff demand that institutions take political positions. But there is also a much older ritual at work. - The Atlantic
