We have found that although AI can enhance individual creativity, it reduces collective creativity. To explain why this occurs, we should first clarify what we mean by creativity. - MIT
Two years. That’s how long it’s been since Andris Nelsons, conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, has had a meaningful conversation with the orchestra’s chief executive Chad Smith. In fact, the two barely speak at all. - Boston Globe
“It’s not that I don’t have a strategy — I just don’t have one for my life. I don’t plan it. Some people define their next goal and know exactly what they want. I let things come. ... I have a vision about how I want to run the company.” - Hube
When their homes came under threat, they instinctively reached for the tools they had to hand: their social and cultural capital. That’s how an apartment block in Madrid became a stage, broadcast on every news channel. - The Guardian
Nature never produces two things that are truly identical. If art is an imitation of nature, then true art cannot be replicated. It can only be pursued. Each instrument was a singular act. - The Strad
“The article, ‘A Silent Moratorium,’ explores the harassment and professional challenges that Israeli and Jewish authors have experienced since the (Gaza War). … The chief executives knew the article could be controversial, ... but the idea for it had come out of conversations with writers starting last year, and it felt ‘critical’ to pursue.” - The New York...
“The Metropolitan Museum of Art has tested positive for traces of the bacteria linked to a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, health officials announced Tuesday. The bacteria were previously detected at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, as authorities continue searching for the source of the outbreak.” - ARTnews
MONA, owned and run (in famously quirky style) by gambling mogul David Walsh in Australia’s island state, is slated to open its first satellite museum on the banks of the Chao Phraya River in the Thai capital in 2029. - Artnet
Art shows in apartments or offices, open to friends only, featuring artists forbidden to exhibit publicly. Philosophy clubs in people's kitchens and living rooms. Small theater companies careful to refer to sensitive topics (like the Ukraine war or Putin) obliquely or not at all. A pervasive climate of fear. - The New York Times
“Paramount Skydance chief David Ellison and his tech billionaire dad Larry Ellison have been sued by a Paramount shareholder who alleged they cut an ‘illegal’ deal with President Donald Trump to secure U.S. governmental approval for the takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery.” - Variety
“Today’s BBC Annual Report showed that license fee payers slid by 539,000 last year to around 23.3 million. This is the biggest decline since 2020-21 and likely one of the biggest of all time. … News of the decline in license-fee payers comes with the BBC seeking some sort of revamped financial model.” - Deadline
“The original panels” — removed on Wednesday following a court decision — “were put in place in 2010 and told the story of how nine slaves lived in the home along with George and Martha Washington in the 1790s, when Philadelphia was briefly the nation’s capital.” - AP
“A revelatory new biography of the overlooked French Surrealist painter Jacqueline Lamba brings to light her long-rumored affair with Frida Kahlo — all thanks to a cache of newly-discovered love letters. Kahlo specialist Salomon Grimberg has long hoped to revive Lamba’s reputation, which he believes has been unfairly overshadowed by that of her husband, the Surrealist icon André Breton.” - Artnet
Millions of dollars in bets on “Love Island USA” signal prediction platform Kalshi’s push into pop culture, where reality TV fandoms are fueling a rapid surge in entertainment trading volume. - Los Angeles Times
Ono debuted the work at Carnegie Hall in 1964, sitting motionless onstage as people took turns cutting off her clothes with scissors. The Broad in Los Angeles is presenting Cut Piece twice this weekend across the street at REDCAT. The performer, known as MPA, is scared — but not of the scissors. - The Guardian
Over and over again, Americans choose to sever bonds that connect us with each other: We move away from our hometowns, we leave our churches, we quit our unions, we quit our parties, we stay in instead of going out, we donate instead of volunteering, we let friendships fade away. - Matt Pearce
AI summaries differ in speed, scale, and uncertain accuracy, but not in their basic educational function. They compress and translate. They can provide a map before we enter unfamiliar territory. - AI In
“It’s a collection that includes stories which inspired the acclaimed movies ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ and ‘Stand By Me’. Libraries in (four) school districts removed the book. Under a 2022 Utah law, that means it can be removed from schools statewide, since at least three districts banned it.” - Utah Public Radio
Pour out a Scotch and soda — make that a malted milk — for this spry codger of a novel that’s stayed on the dance floor long past when might be expected, leaping over book bans from the right and dodging cancellation from the left. - The New York Times
We have found that although AI can enhance individual creativity, it reduces collective creativity. To explain why this occurs, we should first clarify what we mean by creativity. - MIT
Over and over again, Americans choose to sever bonds that connect us with each other: We move away from our hometowns, we leave our churches, we quit our unions, we quit our parties, we stay in instead of going out, we donate instead of volunteering, we let friendships fade away. - Matt Pearce
“What Is an Author?” predicted a future where old ideas about authorship would give way to new questions about technology and power. “What are the modes of existence of this discourse?” Foucault asked. “Where does it come from, how is it circulated” and — perhaps most important — “who controls it?” - The New York Times
Canadians are hugely wary: a Leger poll found 85 percent of respondents want the government to regulate the technology. But that number doesn’t convey just how frightened many are. - The Walrus
Steve Wozniak, Apple’s co-founder, gave expression to this ethos in 2017 when he said: ‘We are the people who make fantasies real.’ It sounds inspiring, but it is important to know which parts of those fantasies they’re choosing, and which parts they’re leaving out. - Aeon
The ancient Greek polymath Eratosthenes, who was the first person to measure the circumference of the Earth, disputed that the Odyssey had anything to do with geography. He said: “You will find the scene of the wanderings of Odysseus when you find the cobbler who sewed up the bag of the winds.” - The Conversation
When their homes came under threat, they instinctively reached for the tools they had to hand: their social and cultural capital. That’s how an apartment block in Madrid became a stage, broadcast on every news channel. - The Guardian
Art shows in apartments or offices, open to friends only, featuring artists forbidden to exhibit publicly. Philosophy clubs in people's kitchens and living rooms. Small theater companies careful to refer to sensitive topics (like the Ukraine war or Putin) obliquely or not at all. A pervasive climate of fear. - The New York Times
“The original panels” — removed on Wednesday following a court decision — “were put in place in 2010 and told the story of how nine slaves lived in the home along with George and Martha Washington in the 1790s, when Philadelphia was briefly the nation’s capital.” - AP
The time it takes to process a visa has dramatically increased. The number of available interview slots at U.S. embassies is backlogged. Application costs have surged. And there's an added layer of uncertainty: paperwork can be perfect, fees can be paid, and yet artists still can be turned away at the border. - NPR
“’Bob was always saying he didn’t want Watermill to become an institution,’ said Charles Chemin, Watermill’s new artistic director. ‘He didn’t want to create a Bob Wilson school. But Watermill is filled with the vision of Bob Wilson, with his unique form of composition and his unique way of collaborating.’” - The New York Times
Analysis of the latest official data by the academy for the Guardian shows that nearly 4,000 academic posts in social sciences, humanities and the arts have been axed in one year alone. - The Guardian
Two years. That’s how long it’s been since Andris Nelsons, conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, has had a meaningful conversation with the orchestra’s chief executive Chad Smith. In fact, the two barely speak at all. - Boston Globe
Nature never produces two things that are truly identical. If art is an imitation of nature, then true art cannot be replicated. It can only be pursued. Each instrument was a singular act. - The Strad
When it opens in 2028, this new Center for Chamber Music will be Seattle’s first permanent venue designed exclusively for chamber music performance, featuring a 271-seat concert hall engineered to create an immersive experience where no listener will be more than 40 feet from the performers. - Seattle Times
“In the opinion of Martha Nussbaum, now 79, …opera can help to fix Western societies that have become nasty, brutish and narcissistic. In particular, we need more men like Cherubino, the cross-dressing boy of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro … than we do Putins, Hegseths, Trumps and Tates.” - The Telegraph (UK) (MSN)
A focus on how well individuals conduct a specific orchestra with limited repertoire at a given moment in time makes little sense to me when I think about what makes a great conductor and how one judges such greatness. - Nightingale's Sonata
“The relationship between pernambuco and music is not ... environmental overconsumption. It is the primary consumers of this resource, the bow makers, who have tried hardest to conserve the wood. ... They have worked to document legal stockpiles and trace provenances of finished bows, and have replanted trees by the millions.” - The New...
“The Metropolitan Museum of Art has tested positive for traces of the bacteria linked to a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, health officials announced Tuesday. The bacteria were previously detected at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, as authorities continue searching for the source of the outbreak.” - ARTnews
MONA, owned and run (in famously quirky style) by gambling mogul David Walsh in Australia’s island state, is slated to open its first satellite museum on the banks of the Chao Phraya River in the Thai capital in 2029. - Artnet
Ono debuted the work at Carnegie Hall in 1964, sitting motionless onstage as people took turns cutting off her clothes with scissors. The Broad in Los Angeles is presenting Cut Piece twice this weekend across the street at REDCAT. The performer, known as MPA, is scared — but not of the scissors. - The...
The museum began work on “High Style: The Art of Cannabis Pipes” three years ago, thinking that increasing legalization and acceptance of marijuana made the timing good. Yet the show was cancelled this spring; museum management says it was for logistical reasons. The question: the logistics of what exactly? - The New York Times
The privately-owned Gelman Santander Collection, whose 68 pieces include 10 paintings by Frida Kahlo along with works by Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco, and others, is scheduled to spend two years touring Europe. Some citizens, unconvinced that the art will come home, are suing to keep it in Mexico. - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)
Over the weekend, a European Union commission followed up on its earlier threats to cancel a €2 million grant to the Venice Biennale, citing Russia’s participation in the event this year as its reasoning. - ARTnews
“The article, ‘A Silent Moratorium,’ explores the harassment and professional challenges that Israeli and Jewish authors have experienced since the (Gaza War). … The chief executives knew the article could be controversial, ... but the idea for it had come out of conversations with writers starting last year, and it felt ‘critical’ to pursue.” - The...
AI summaries differ in speed, scale, and uncertain accuracy, but not in their basic educational function. They compress and translate. They can provide a map before we enter unfamiliar territory. - AI In
“It’s a collection that includes stories which inspired the acclaimed movies ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ and ‘Stand By Me’. Libraries in (four) school districts removed the book. Under a 2022 Utah law, that means it can be removed from schools statewide, since at least three districts banned it.” - Utah Public Radio
Pour out a Scotch and soda — make that a malted milk — for this spry codger of a novel that’s stayed on the dance floor long past when might be expected, leaping over book bans from the right and dodging cancellation from the left. - The New York Times
A group of major publishers have filed a lawsuit against Google, accusing the company of illegally using millions of copyrighted books to help build its Gemini artificial intelligence models, in “one of the most prolific infringements of copyrighted materials in history”. - The Guardian
“Proposed legislation to filter the reading choices students can make has brought concern, and budget reductions make some worry about the future of public school librarians. … ‘Right now, a lot of administrators and school boards look at having school librarians as a luxury,” said (union president) Gayle Schmuhl.” - Ohio Capital Journal
“Paramount Skydance chief David Ellison and his tech billionaire dad Larry Ellison have been sued by a Paramount shareholder who alleged they cut an ‘illegal’ deal with President Donald Trump to secure U.S. governmental approval for the takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery.” - Variety
“Today’s BBC Annual Report showed that license fee payers slid by 539,000 last year to around 23.3 million. This is the biggest decline since 2020-21 and likely one of the biggest of all time. … News of the decline in license-fee payers comes with the BBC seeking some sort of revamped financial model.” -...
Millions of dollars in bets on “Love Island USA” signal prediction platform Kalshi’s push into pop culture, where reality TV fandoms are fueling a rapid surge in entertainment trading volume. - Los Angeles Times
“CEO David Ellison’s … confidantes have pushed him to consider moving its corporate headquarters and reallocating much of its $30 billion in planned spending outside the state” in reaction to the lawsuit. “The considerations may just be a show of brinkmanship, given so much of the industry’s production takes place outside of Hollywood already.”...
“It’s not that I don’t have a strategy — I just don’t have one for my life. I don’t plan it. Some people define their next goal and know exactly what they want. I let things come. ... I have a vision about how I want to run the company.” - Hube
So claims Julian MacKay, who was a principal at the Bavarian State Ballet from 2022 until this week. He says he complained about unfair treatment and threatened to resign, then was dismissed without warning while on sick leave. The company says he was properly terminated in an in-person meeting. - The Violin Channel
Dance Guru is a virtual reality application in which a digital teacher, seen through your headset, walks you through the steps for salsa, waltzing, bachata or cha-cha — repeating as many times as you need, with no human there to make you self-conscious or to get impatient or bored. - NPR
The unnamed 17-year-old, who's been competing in girls’ youth divisions for several years, was enrolled as a contestant in last week's North American Irish Dance Championships in Orlando. She withdrew after Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier threatened to pursue the competition’s governing bodies for violating state law. - Orlando Sentinel
“By eschewing music and narrative in favor of seemingly pedestrian motions—toe taps, limbs folding and unrolling—that don’t repeat, challenged dance tradition when it premiered in 1966. It requires performers to maintain what Rainer describes as an ‘uninflected continuity.’”- Dance Magazine
“For me, the key has always been to make Odette the embodiment of pure femininity, sorrow, refinement, and forgiveness — but never weakness. ... Odile, by contrast, should be explosive, feminine, bold, daring and wicked — but never vulgar. You know, without steam coming out of her nostrils.” - Gramilano (Milan)
“(Starting) in March 2025, (Rudy Mendoza) offered drop-in classes at Logan Square Improv to students who wanted to try playing in either (English or Spanish). The school has grown exponentially since. There are now three full levels of classes for bilingual students. He has a roster of seven other teachers.” - Chicago Tribune
Andrew Lloyd Webber has addressed the closing announcement of CATS: The Jellicle Ball, pleading for "theatre owners, unions and producers to come together urgently to address what is a crisis coming to a head." - Broadway World
“(The festival) promises experimental ‘performed readings’ of the playwright’s works in pockets of Ireland and Britain over the next 12 years. ... Events will unfold at locations of significance to Beckett’s life and legacy – from Enniskillen, Belfast and Dublin to Folkestone, Reading and Snodland – tracing his footsteps across Britain and Ireland.” -...
“The Society of London Theatre (SOLT) has reached a proposed three-year agreement with Equity covering pay and working conditions for performers and stage management working in the West End. The proposed deal runs from April 2026 to April 2029.” - WhatsOnStage (UK)
“Ross said that it had been a dream of hers to be on Broadway. Instead of throwing a birthday party to celebrate turning 40, she rented stages in New York City and Los Angeles and invited her friends to watch her perform a one-woman show.” - The New York Times
“The cleaners, represented by 32BJ of Service Employees International Union, reached a tentative deal that includes $5 an hour wage increases, a 21% increase from the current rates, by the end of the new four-year contract, as well as improved paid leave and protection for its employer-paid family health care.” - The Hollywood Reporter
“A revelatory new biography of the overlooked French Surrealist painter Jacqueline Lamba brings to light her long-rumored affair with Frida Kahlo — all thanks to a cache of newly-discovered love letters. Kahlo specialist Salomon Grimberg has long hoped to revive Lamba’s reputation, which he believes has been unfairly overshadowed by that of her husband, the Surrealist icon André Breton.” - Artnet
The stacks kept rising as Uminer added his hauls from thrift shops, book dealers and eBay deliveries. “I don’t think of myself as a hoarder,” he said, “but I guess my building did.” - The New York Times
“Across his six-decade career, he was just as likely to go after D.C. Mayor Marion Barry — whom Mr. Oliphant depicted as an Idi Amin-like, tea-addicted ‘King of Kolumbia’ — as he was President George H.W. Bush, whom he skewered as a purse-carrying wimp and a would-be Lawrence of Arabia.” - The Washington Post...
The actor was a warm internet presence and a proud producer of wine from his vineyard. “At 11, he changed his name to Sam, taking inspiration from characters in Western movies. It was, he added, ‘probably the best decision I made in my life.’” - The New York Times
Because she’s even more ubiquitous than usual this year — a blockbuster show at Tate Modern, a bio-series at Netflix, a fantasy opera about her at the Met, a new record ($54.7 million) for a woman artist at auction — here’s a recap of her life. No mention of the affair with Trotsky, though....
Her deadpan performances in Woody Allen’s early films (she was his second wife) first brought her to public notice, but she achieved real fame as the pigtailed, gingham-wearing, put-upon suburban heroine of Norman Lear’s soap opera parody Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, which aired 325 episodes over its 18-month run in 1976-77. - Deadline
Studio Theatre seeks its next Artistic Director to co-lead one of the premiere producing organizations in Washington, DC as it approaches its 50th Anniversary.
The Town Hall (Town Hall), the storied performance hall in the heart of New York City’s theater district, invites applications for its Executive Director position.
Syracuse Stage, Central New York’s premier professional theatre, seeks its next Artistic Director, to join Managing Director Carly DiFulvio Allen to lead...
The Flint School of Performing Arts (FSPA) is seeking its next Director to lead this celebrated and impactful division of the Flint Institute of Music.
Ordway Center for the Performing Arts seeks Vice President, Earned Revenue & Marketing. Salary range is between $140,000-$160,000. Please visit link for full details.
University of the Pacific's Conservatory of Music in Northern California seeks an innovative and broadly minded colleague to advance and professionalize operations in the Conservatory.
“In the opinion of Martha Nussbaum, now 79, …opera can help to fix Western societies that have become nasty, brutish and narcissistic. In particular, we need more men like Cherubino, the cross-dressing boy of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro … than we do Putins, Hegseths, Trumps and Tates.” - The Telegraph (UK) (MSN)
Satire makes fun of something to expose its truth in a way that can be notoriously difficult to decode. What is often misread in Twain’s most famous novel is this: he satirically uses racism to ridicule racism. - Adi Magazine
The actor was a warm internet presence and a proud producer of wine from his vineyard. “At 11, he changed his name to Sam, taking inspiration from characters in Western movies. It was, he added, ‘probably the best decision I made in my life.’” - The New York Times
Personal testimony is paramount on BookTok; a book is deemed successful if it ‘breaks’ or ‘destroys’ a “reader. The most common book-review content on the app understands books as pleasure-spiking torment factories.” - The New Yorker
“Initially, the administrators discussed removing some of the pieces from the show. But then the provost texted that he wanted to take down the entire exhibition instead. wrote, ‘I think it'll be easier to manage any barking from our friends in Austin.’” - NPR
Pianist Jayson Gillham, who spoke from the stage about Israel killing journalists in Gaza, said “I believe artists should be free to speak with integrity. … This case was never just about me. My principles remain unchanged.” - The New York Times
“A major publisher appeared to pull a prizewinning history book about a prominent South Carolina slaveholding family and its role in the abolitionist movement, after several scholars accused the author of misleading readers” - and it looks like the historian lost her job at Tufts as well. - The New York Times
Mid-budget and horror films had some decent rep, but trans characters? There were none in 2025 films, says a study, and all other queer rep continued to decline. - The Guardian (UK)
“What’s left has the air of a ghost ship, as the center’s board prepares to reconsider to what degree the building will remain open. The Kennedy Center declined to comment.” - Washington Post
“The F.C.C.’s focus on The View plays on longstanding grudges held by the president against the show and some of its hosts, and thrusts a talk show started by the ABC journalist Barbara Walters as a breezy kaffeeklatsch into a molten national debate.” - The New York Times
