“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
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
“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
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
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
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
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
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 New York...
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
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
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
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
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
The subreddit, on which thousands of artists post images of their work, has strict rules against anything resembling marketing, sales or self-promotion. When one artist violated that rule (inadvertently, he says) with the words “prints available,” a moderator banned him and deleted seven years of his posts. Then things really went sideways. - Artnet
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)
With mergers, mostly. “While efforts are already underway by pay TV operators like Charter Communications, Comcast and DirecTV to reinvent the bundle and by networks to pivot towards digital, M&A drama has dominated the industry.” - TheWrap (Yahoo!)
The fundraising program brought in more than $30 million in fiscal 2025, well above projections. Half of the donations and 20% of the podcast subscription fees collected, a total of $18 million, will be distributed to member stations in January; 31 of those stations will, in effect, have their NPR dues refunded. - Current
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)
“(The) museum has approved a ticket hike from €22 to €32 ($25 to $37) for non-European visitors from January to help finance an overhaul of the building whose degradation has been exposed by the Oct. 19 crown jewels heist.” - AP
“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
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
"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
“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
One person on the town council: “This is the direct result of ill-thought-out planning changes and poor decision making, which threaten to destroy our green spaces.” But hey, James Cameron supports it. - BBC
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
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
Well, if not exorcised, at least accosted by crosses: “Thereminists appear to carve sound out of thin air, using their hands to prompt a distinct whir from its wooden, lectern-like body by manipulating the electromagnetic fields around its two antennae.” - The New York Times
“This year, the internet is uncharacteristically quiet during the period when Spotify Wrapped typically appears. The lack of anticipation comes ... as it faces backlash on such issues as artist compensation, AI-generated music and ICE recruitment ads.” - CBC
“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
The subreddit, on which thousands of artists post images of their work, has strict rules against anything resembling marketing, sales or self-promotion. When one artist violated that rule (inadvertently, he says) with the words “prints available,” a moderator banned him and deleted seven years of his posts. Then things really went sideways. - Artnet
“(The) museum has approved a ticket hike from €22 to €32 ($25 to $37) for non-European visitors from January to help finance an overhaul of the building whose degradation has been exposed by the Oct. 19 crown jewels heist.” - AP
As public funding evaporates, political scrutiny intensifies, and donor behavior shifts, museums are confronting a turning point: adapt or risk irrelevance. The museums best poised for the future are those willing to embrace collaboration, transparency, and experimentation. - Artnet
“As a shot of commercial and architectural adrenaline, it revived British cinema-going, welcoming more than a million visitors in its first year, and impelling the subsequent proliferation of multiplexes.” - The Guardian (UK)
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
Angoulême is where graphic novels and comic books are normally celebrated in a huge festival each year. But maybe not in 2026. “Criticized for financial opacity, harsh management style and the firing of an employee who had filed a rape complaint, the company 9e Art + has found itself cornered on all sides.” - Le...
You know what clickbait is, right? Well, the word of the year is its anger-fueled cousin, rage bait, "manipulative tactics used to drive engagement online, with usage of it increasing threefold in the last 12 months.” - BBC
Tessa Hadley: "Storytelling was the most powerful magic I knew: it got expressed first in the games I played out with my friends. Written down though, words were puny for such a long time.” Then came Henry James. - The Guardian (UK)
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
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
With mergers, mostly. “While efforts are already underway by pay TV operators like Charter Communications, Comcast and DirecTV to reinvent the bundle and by networks to pivot towards digital, M&A drama has dominated the industry.” - TheWrap (Yahoo!)
The fundraising program brought in more than $30 million in fiscal 2025, well above projections. Half of the donations and 20% of the podcast subscription fees collected, a total of $18 million, will be distributed to member stations in January; 31 of those stations will, in effect, have their NPR dues refunded. - Current
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
“Hawke shaved his head and stood in a trench to appear shorter than his co-stars. This literally gave him a fresh view on the world.” - The Guardian (UK)
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
An exec at the firm Move AI insists that the combination of motion-capture and AI software isn’t to replace dance artists but to streamline the repetitive, tedious process of animation. (The dance artists are still nervous.) Meanwhile, other AI programs stand to make the work of dance historians and archivists easier. - Dance Magazine
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
The musical, starring Kristin Chenoweth (in her return to Broadway after ten years) and featuring Stephen Schwartz’s first Broadway score since Wicked, began previews in October and officially opened two weeks ago. The production was expected to run into next spring but, after negative reviews, will close on Jan. 4. - Entertainment Weekly
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
Woodrell was “a novelist known for prose as rugged and elemental as the igneous rock of the Ozark Mountains, his birthplace, which he returned to just as his artistic craftsmanship peaked.” - The New York Times
“Everyone else is so calm, and everyone’s working or researching or something. It’s almost like a movie set, and I have to pretend I’m working, too. Everyone should have a library card. It’s like a bicycle but for your brain.” - The New York Times
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.
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
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)
