"In a varied career spanning more than a half-century, … (he) spent 22 years anchoring the CBS-TV staple “Sunday Morning” and decades as a radio commentator, and carved a distinct place for himself in broadcasting by occasionally presenting the news in wry doggerel." - The Washington Post (MSN)
DMAC says dismantling is cheaper than repairing. Greenwood Pond: Double Site "is considered to be the first urban wetland project in the country. Its imminent demolition has angered landscape architecture advocates and upset Miss." - The New York Times
Rie Kudan "won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize this week for her sci-fi novel Tokyo-to Dojo-to (Tokyo Sympathy Tower), which centers around a high-rise prison tower and contains themes surrounding AI." The reaction to her news has not been positive. - Vice
"After a demanding (2½-year) program that included a gasp-inducing repair of the two cracking, 500-year-old limewood panels, Getty senior conservator Ulrich Birkmaier and his team stabilized the paintings, while bringing the images back to something close to what they likely were … in the 16th century." - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)
It homogenizes, and it silos. It’s the commons, but with gatekeepers. There’s never been anything like it! But it’s really just an extension of Enlightenment rationalism. - Yale Review
"There are complexities to bringing $1 billion into classrooms — and restoring programs that have often been the ones to go when money is short. First, there’s hiring amid an extreme teacher shortage. Then, there’s the odd timing of the funding starting halfway through the school year." - The Mercury News (San Jose)
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
