Cellist András Fejér has been with the famed string quartet since its founding exactly 50 years ago. As of next September, Fejér will retire; replacing him will be Romanian-born cellist Mihai Marica. - Gramophone
Toni Pierce-Sands, a featured soloist in some of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s most iconic suites and a co-founder of celebrated Twin Cities company TU Dance, died Tuesday in Minneapolis. She was 63 and had been battling cancer. - The Star-Tribune
Oddly enough, the collection —well, the cuneiform clay tablets, not the papyrus — has come down to us today precisely because the Babylonians and Medes conquered and down Nineveh, the Assyrian capital, in 612 BC. - Artnet
The Dallas city government has voted to explore relocating and selling the brutalist city hall designed by architect IM Pei, placing the building under increased threat of demolition. - Dezeen
All in all, an exhausting year. But—if you’ll permit me—a bit of hope? For every gallery that shut down or closed a location, another seemed to open. And, as art dealers reminded me all year, when the world gets dark, artists rise to the challenge, leading the way forward. - ARTnews
I first visited the Northern Arapaho people on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming in 1999. At that time, there were hundreds of speakers of the Arapaho language. Today, there are less than 100, and all are over the age of 70. - The Conversation
His plays were produced and his books were read all over the Western world, and he won the Nobel for literature in 1943. How is it he’s disappeared from our bookshelves and stages? (His enthusiastic fascism certainly didn’t help.) There are still worthwhile, albeit depressing, lessons in his work. - The Nation (MSN)
Netflix showing strong interest in WBD's assets, including making a mostly cash offer to acquire them, coincided with reports that the White House had antitrust concerns, while Comcast, which also submitted a bid, still has to deal with the challenge that President Donald Trump loathes CEO Brian Roberts. - The Wrap (MSN)
If an AI system were sentient, then the alignment paradigm, whereby AI activities are circumscribed entirely by human goals, becomes untenable. It would be ethically impermissible to subject the interests of a sentient AI system to human-defined goals. - 3 Quarks Daily
“As with other artistic attempts to track the mind more accurately — like the stream-of-consciousness of Virginia Woolf and James Joyce — O’Connor’s coexistence-of-everything choreography can appear off-putting and abstruse. But O’Connor isn’t trying to be difficult, he said.” - The New York Times
Today the conditions for apocalypticism—gaping inequality, pandemics, rapid technological development—are amply present. So perhaps it isn’t surprising that, over the past several years, a number of scholars and political figures have warned of a coming collapse, by which they tend to mean the destruction of the basic elements of society. - The Atlantic (MSN)
June Squibb made her Broadway debut in the Ethel Merman-led production of “Gypsy” as a replacement for one of the strippers. What would she have said if someone had told her back then that she’d eventually get a starring role on Broadway, but that it wouldn’t happen for another 65 years? - Los Angeles Times
None of the late-night hosts Trump repeatedly attacks have said anything nearly as outrageous as what the animated series does, depicting the President having an affair with Satan and siring the Antichrist. Why does Trump never lambaste South Park? Because it has two things he respects more than anything else. - The Hollywood Reporter
Kanal, on the edge of central Brussels, will feature a large museum, multiple performance venues, and an architecture center. It’s 95% complete and scheduled to open this time next year. Yet, thanks to widely expected budget cuts and a particularly Belgian kind of political dysfunction, Kanal’s prospects are in doubt. - The Guardian
The Nativity scene by artist Victoria-Maria Geyer (herself a practicing Catholic) is the first new one on the Grand-Place in 25 years, and she made the human figures without faces so that people of any background could identify with them. Alas, that’s not how the assemblage was received. - Euronews
While he called the reporting of the allegations “unfair,” Adjaye didn’t address directly the substance of the charges (which he denied when the first reports came out). Rather, he spoke about the effect the accusations had on him and what he sees as the media’s motives in reporting the story. - Dezeen
Company management expects to reduce its base expenses by £2.8 million ($3.7 million) annually with layoffs as well as pay cuts for some remaining staffers. - The Stage (UK)
As he was in New York receiving three Gotham Awards for his Cannes-winning It Was Just an Accident, a Tehran court sentenced Panahi to a year in prison and a two-year travel ban for “propaganda activities against the system.” - AP
If an AI system were sentient, then the alignment paradigm, whereby AI activities are circumscribed entirely by human goals, becomes untenable. It would be ethically impermissible to subject the interests of a sentient AI system to human-defined goals. - 3 Quarks Daily
Today the conditions for apocalypticism—gaping inequality, pandemics, rapid technological development—are amply present. So perhaps it isn’t surprising that, over the past several years, a number of scholars and political figures have warned of a coming collapse, by which they tend to mean the destruction of the basic elements of society. - The Atlantic (MSN)
While I agree that leaning on a cliché might be a prosaic get-out-of-jail-free card, I do think they get a bad rap. The general criticism is that clichés are lazy, which I can understand. Yet sometimes I feel like this feedback itself is lazy or one-dimensional. - Sydney Review of Books
While liberal arts institutions do have intrinsic value, that doesn’t mean they are entitled to be socially favoured or economically exceptional for ever. A particularly stubborn myth is that liberal arts education has a monopoly on cultivating critical thinking. - The Guardian
This fetishization of perfection might not be surprising, but that doesn’t make it any less damaging. You cannot learn or grow while trying to appear as if you have everything figured out. You cannot talk to God by trying to avoid doing something wrong. Perfection is stagnation. - The New York Times
“In the fiction of Assassin’s Creed, humanity is descended from ancient aliens; ... world events influenced by a shadow war between two secret societies; the media exists to manipulate the public. This makes for an exciting series of video games” — but it echoes real-life conspiracy theories. - Slate
Kanal, on the edge of central Brussels, will feature a large museum, multiple performance venues, and an architecture center. It’s 95% complete and scheduled to open this time next year. Yet, thanks to widely expected budget cuts and a particularly Belgian kind of political dysfunction, Kanal’s prospects are in doubt. - The Guardian
“Russia's prosecutor general opened a case against the feminist art group on Friday, November 28. The ‘extremist’ label, commonly deployed by the government as justification for stifling political opposition, would officially ban the collective's activities in Russia.” - Hyperallergic
Arts and humanities scholarship is not an ornament, it is the record of what human minds have made, imagined and endured. To let those worlds fall quiet is to diminish what it means to be human. - Arts Professional
“Based on the available evidence, the skills that future graduates will most need in the AI era—creative thinking, the capacity to learn new things, flexible modes of analysis—are precisely those that are likely to be eroded by inserting AI into the educational process.” - The Atlantic
In Alison Bechdel’s newest book, “Communal systems of support and shared resources are positioned against the capitalist drive to isolate, hoard resources, and privatize.” - Los Angeles Review of Books
Cellist András Fejér has been with the famed string quartet since its founding exactly 50 years ago. As of next September, Fejér will retire; replacing him will be Romanian-born cellist Mihai Marica. - Gramophone
Canada has been neglecting our (excellent and varied) music scene for the past decade. A post-pandemic evaluation of the government’s Canada Music Fund revealed that revenues are down: album sales fell by nearly 74 percent between 2015 and 2021. - The Walrus
A huge portion of the world’s recorded musical heritage is stored on magnetic tape, used regularly from the 1940s into the digital age to capture musicians’ sounds in the studio. But as analog tape ages, it grows more fragile and vulnerable. - The New York Times
The Australian composer won for her cello concerto A Sutured World, composed for Nicolas Altstaedt and co-commissioned by the Bavarian Radio Symphony, the Melbourne Symphony, the Amsterdam Cello Biennale and the Casa da Música Porto in Portugal. - Limelight (Australia)
“What’s distinctive about the classical guitar is its simplicity. Ultimately, it’s basically a wooden box with strings attached and a fretted neck, a bridge, a saddle, and tuning pegs. Classical guitar has no inbuilt amplification, and the sounds are produced very directly.” - Aeon
The Dallas city government has voted to explore relocating and selling the brutalist city hall designed by architect IM Pei, placing the building under increased threat of demolition. - Dezeen
All in all, an exhausting year. But—if you’ll permit me—a bit of hope? For every gallery that shut down or closed a location, another seemed to open. And, as art dealers reminded me all year, when the world gets dark, artists rise to the challenge, leading the way forward. - ARTnews
The Nativity scene by artist Victoria-Maria Geyer (herself a practicing Catholic) is the first new one on the Grand-Place in 25 years, and she made the human figures without faces so that people of any background could identify with them. Alas, that’s not how the assemblage was received. - Euronews
In London, until now, post-1900 Western art was Tate territory, but the National has launched “Project Domani,” a £750 million ($998 million) plan to build a new wing for the gallery and set up an endowment to acquire and care for post-1900 art. - The Times (UK)
“The Serpentine x FLAG Art Foundation Prize, as it will be called, will be awarded every other year to an international artist who will receive £200,000 ($265,000), as well as an exhibition and programming at both institutions and an accompanying catalog.” - ARTnews
Sprawl is usually cast as an L.A. negative, but it was good for art. The horizontal city is just too big to fully gentrify; there was always another neighborhood where an artist could find studio space, or a gallery could open up shop. And they did. - Los Angeles Times
Oddly enough, the collection —well, the cuneiform clay tablets, not the papyrus — has come down to us today precisely because the Babylonians and Medes conquered and down Nineveh, the Assyrian capital, in 612 BC. - Artnet
I first visited the Northern Arapaho people on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming in 1999. At that time, there were hundreds of speakers of the Arapaho language. Today, there are less than 100, and all are over the age of 70. - The Conversation
His plays were produced and his books were read all over the Western world, and he won the Nobel for literature in 1943. How is it he’s disappeared from our bookshelves and stages? (His enthusiastic fascism certainly didn’t help.) There are still worthwhile, albeit depressing, lessons in his work. - The Nation (MSN)
I learned about close reading when I asked them to take their own thinking seriously—to take themselves seriously. Doing so, I found, forced me to take my job more seriously. - Boston Review
It took weeks for me to realize that I was a broken reader. I assumed I’d just had a streak of bad luck in the Dept. of Picking. I started taking fewer chances. I bought only books that looked like books I would buy. This backfired in a kind of horror-movie sequence. - The...
“The Macquarie Dictionary dubbed the term the epitome of 2025 linguistics, with a committee of word experts saying the outcome embodies the word of the year’s general theme of reflecting ‘a major aspect of society or societal change throughout the year’.” - The Guardian
Netflix showing strong interest in WBD's assets, including making a mostly cash offer to acquire them, coincided with reports that the White House had antitrust concerns, while Comcast, which also submitted a bid, still has to deal with the challenge that President Donald Trump loathes CEO Brian Roberts. - The Wrap (MSN)
None of the late-night hosts Trump repeatedly attacks have said anything nearly as outrageous as what the animated series does, depicting the President having an affair with Satan and siring the Antichrist. Why does Trump never lambaste South Park? Because it has two things he respects more than anything else. - The Hollywood Reporter
As he was in New York receiving three Gotham Awards for his Cannes-winning It Was Just an Accident, a Tehran court sentenced Panahi to a year in prison and a two-year travel ban for “propaganda activities against the system.” - AP
More than 100 Southeast Asian titles have appeared in Netflix’s Global Top 10. Over 40 of those titles charted in 2025 alone. Titles from the region also ranked in the top 10 lists of over 80 countries in 2025. - Deadline
Most of all, I was struck by how the film chose to portray William Shakespeare, the greatest poet in the English language, as a kind of Marlon Brando in Elizabethan drag. - The New York Times
The Supreme Court on Monday grappled with the practical implications of a closely watched copyright clash testing whether internet providers can be held liable for the piracy of thousands of songs online. - The New York Times
“As with other artistic attempts to track the mind more accurately — like the stream-of-consciousness of Virginia Woolf and James Joyce — O’Connor’s coexistence-of-everything choreography can appear off-putting and abstruse. But O’Connor isn’t trying to be difficult, he said.” - The New York Times
August Bournonville directed the company in the mid-19th century, and his works and style became thoroughly identified with the institution. Yet for some years the RDB turned away from Bournonville toward contemporary ballet; new artistic director Amy Watson is bringing his works and style back to the company’s heart. - The New York Times
“As AI technologies proliferate and become an increasingly inescapable fact of modern life, choreographers are not only experimenting with AI tools, but they’re also creating works that grapple with the potential repercussions of artificial intelligence and the existential questions it raises.” - Dance Magazine
Toronto-based Ballet Jörgen had just begun its annual December tour of Ontario with the holiday favorite when the rental truck containing its sets and backdrops was stolen around 3:30 am Monday morning. - CBC
“Biosensors are devices designed to measure real-time processes and responses within the body, like a person’s heart rate, blood oxygen level, and sleep quality. … Here are a few ways biosensors have been used to expand research in dance medicine.” - Dance Magazine
As VR becomes more widespread, a growing number of dance artists and companies are exploring—and, in some cases, redefining—what this technology can do. - Dance Magazine
Company management expects to reduce its base expenses by £2.8 million ($3.7 million) annually with layoffs as well as pay cuts for some remaining staffers. - The Stage (UK)
Erik Piepenburg: “This year at least six theater productions have used “f*****” in their titles. … Why is a slur that a stranger hurled at me now waving hello from my playbill?” On the other hand, famously gay Black playwright Jeremy O. Harris told Piepenburg to stop pearl-clutching. - The New York Times
“We wrote something, you know, with very open hearts and no political agenda. We just wanted to tell this amazing story, and look what has happened.” - NPR
“He loved his words to the point of mania and yet fretted over their inadequacy, making the mere act of speech seem somehow both heroic and doomed. He caused words to explode like fireworks, dazzling us with their bright, multicolored patterns.” - The New York Times
“The British Theatre Consortium report, titled ‘British Theatre Before & After Covid’, examines 2019, the last full year before the pandemic, and 2023, the first full year after theatres reopened. It draws on anonymised data from 139 theatres across the UK.” - WhatsOnStage (UK)
The musical, based on a 2012 documentary about a Florida couple seeking to build a palatial home but stymied by an economic downturn, is yet another high-profile financial failure for Broadway: The show cost up to $22.5 million to capitalize. - The New York Times
Toni Pierce-Sands, a featured soloist in some of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s most iconic suites and a co-founder of celebrated Twin Cities company TU Dance, died Tuesday in Minneapolis. She was 63 and had been battling cancer. - The Star-Tribune
June Squibb made her Broadway debut in the Ethel Merman-led production of “Gypsy” as a replacement for one of the strippers. What would she have said if someone had told her back then that she’d eventually get a starring role on Broadway, but that it wouldn’t happen for another 65 years? - Los Angeles...
While he called the reporting of the allegations “unfair,” Adjaye didn’t address directly the substance of the charges (which he denied when the first reports came out). Rather, he spoke about the effect the accusations had on him and what he sees as the media’s motives in reporting the story. - Dezeen
The actor, who was artistic director of the Old Vic theatre in London from 2004 to 2013, was acquitted on nine sexual assault charges in the UK in 2023. Now he faces three civil lawsuits, two of them by accusers in the criminal cases. - BBC (MSN)
A man of consummate urbanity who lived like a country squire, he was a sportsman (cricket was his game) and a connoisseur of ideas, which he treated with a cricketer’s agility and vigor. - Los Angeles Times
“Dr. Soloway went to red carpet events related to the show,” but she didn’t love them. “She was very humble in terms of publicity; she wasn’t interested in it. … She loved the show and us and the character, but sometimes she wasn’t in the mood to be everyone’s favorite trailblazer.” - Chicago Sun-Times
Application Deadline: Monday, December 1, 2025, at 5 p.m. P.T.
Accepting Online Applications Only Via the City of Eugene’s Website: Director of Programming | Job
A paid side-by-side opportunity in Ottawa, Canada for emerging and early-career orchestral musicians, conductors and administrators. International applicants welcome.
The Executive and Artistic Director will provide leadership and have overall responsibility for programming, fundraising, external relations, mission fulfillment, and the financial performance of The Soraya.
Hollywood. “At one point in the early 1990s, Stoppard earned $500,000 for a five-week stretch polishing various projects for Universal Pictures. … He seemed to have a particular fondness for dog movies, contributing to both Beethoven and 102 Dalmatians.” - The New York Times
“Based on the available evidence, the skills that future graduates will most need in the AI era—creative thinking, the capacity to learn new things, flexible modes of analysis—are precisely those that are likely to be eroded by inserting AI into the educational process.” - The Atlantic
"Playing an instrument well is phenomenally difficult. It takes a lifetime of arduous work and can become all-consuming, making it easy to forget that technical mastery is a means to an expressive end, not the goal. … In and of itself, it is uninteresting.” - The New York Times
Rooney says that “UK legislation may mean she cannot be paid royalties by her British publisher or the BBC because it could leave both at risk of being accused of funding terrorism.” The Irish writer has said that she intends her royalties to support the group Palestine Action. - BBC
“One of a select band of writers from any discipline to earn his own adjective – ‘Stoppardian’ – in the Oxford English Dictionary, he delighted in the most improbable juxtapositions.” He also shared a co-writing Oscar for Shakespeare in Love. - The Guardian (UK)
“Pick a film from either current releases or a curated archive, select a drink package for an extra $50 each, choose a 12-13 course gourmet meal off a seasonal menu for another $100 a head, and you have a ritzy night at the movies.” - The Guardian (UK)
A security guard (now suspended from his job) was not at his post. “That allowed the two protesters to walk on a narrow ledge along the wall of the left side of the orchestra pit and make their way on to the stage.” - The New York Times
“Many participants reported that their work had already been used without their permission to train large language models, and more than a third (39%) said their income had fallen as a result of generative AI. A large majority also expected their earnings to decline further.” - The Guardian (UK)
“Senate Democrats are investigating the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts over its spending practices and booking deals involving political allies, accusing its leadership, installed by President Donald Trump, of ‘self-dealing, favoritism, and waste’ amid programming shifts and plummeting ticket sales.’” - The Washington Post (MSN)
The six-foot-tall painting, Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer (1914-16), shows a young heiress and daughter of Klimt’s patrons draped in a Chinese robe. Its sale price of $236.4 million is exceeded only by the notorious Salvator Mundi attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, which sold for $450 million in 2017. - The Guardian
“If you press your ear to the plays of the 20th century, they’ll tell you secrets of human acts gone by and strategies to keep on. Among bloody slings and arrows of inhumane humanity are extraordinary scenes, real and imagined, of survival.” - American Theatre
“As with most things in life, when expertise is devalued, it’s easier to pass trash off as treasure. AutoTune and AI are enabling people who lack musical talent to game the system — like audio catfish.” - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo)
