Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
This Week’s AJ Highlights
Good morning. Here are this week's highlights:
Asheville’s Arts District Devastated by Flooding from Hurricane HeleneAsheville's River Arts District, home to galleries, studios, and performance...
Today’s Highlights
Good Morning: A While back the NEA asked several arts "practitioners" to write essays in response to the Endowment's latest arts participation study which...
New AI Video Generators Could Change How Movies Are Made
Though many believe the technology could speed the work of seasoned moviemakers, it could also replace less experienced digital artists. Others experts worry that...
King Charles’ Master Of The King’s Music Has Plans
She will soon meet with King Charles, a classical music fan who studied the cello, piano and trumpet, to outline her ideas. She is...
Why Its So Difficult To Measure Participation In The Arts
Part of the challenge is that such questions aren’t really empirical; they can’t be answered by just by asking Americans about their arts activities....
Your Next Playlist: Music Of The Street In San Francisco’s Mission District
The Bop Spotter project uses a microphone to surreptitiously and constantly record a street in the historically Latino neighborhood. Making use of a public...
The Arts Helped Power Asheville’s Economy. Can It All Be Rebuilt?
Renewed interest in Appalachian art, music and culture has been drawing tourists to western North Carolina in recent years. Visitors to Asheville’s Buncombe County spent...
The Black List Has an Amazing Track Record For Spotting Hollywood Writing Talent. Now...
Fifty-four Academy Awards and 267 nominations. That’s the sort of concrete impact the Black List has had since launching in 2005 as Hollywood insiders’ go-to...
Has Music Software Made Music Worse?
"Pro Tools, as a sort of way of making music, on some level, has levelled the playing field that allowed people who can’t sing...
All That Promise Of AI: And What We Get Is The New CliffsNotes?
Just feed the raw material into a large language model and in an instant you’ll have a summary to scan. With OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and...
For The First Time, And After A Decade Of Work, Scientists Unveil Stunning Map...
Hundreds of scientists mapped out those connections in stunning detail in a series of papers published on Wednesday in the journal Nature. - The New York Times
Problematic: Just How Do You Measure Participation In The Arts?
Pre-internet, the lines were pretty clear about the binary relationship between artist and audience. Artists created and audience consumed. In today’s digital world, the...
Today’s AJ Highlights
Good morning: Even in the time of Big Data, you might be surprised to hear how difficult it can be to get good statistical...
Less Than Half Of American Adults Read a Book Last Year. And Yet A...
In 2022, fewer than half of adults reported reading a book in the past 12 months. Furthermore, only 38 percent reported reading fiction or...
Star Cast Of Classical Musicians Convene At Beloved Dying Producer’s Home To Say Goodbye
Over the course of the concert, nearly a dozen musicians played for Adam Abeshouse. Each one embraced him after performing. At least for one...
Dance Data: Here’s What The 50 Largest Dance Companies Look Like
Within the Largest 50, the number of dancers within these companies ranges from 9 to 104, with the median number of dancers at 40.5. Within...
No Doubt About It Now: Music Is Therapy And Science Should Take It Seriously
During experiential fusion with music, you temporarily lose awareness of yourself as an individual entity separate from the music; you and the music have...
Can Anyone Really Know You? (And Would You Really Want Them To?)
Perhaps we’re wearing a mask that others are too inattentive to peer behind; or maybe we’re just too deep to know. There are many...
How Syntax Changes Meaning — The Context Of Adjacent Words
Often, their authors are all too clearly estranged from the full resources of the English language: What should be putty in their hands is...
How British Words Invaded American English
The chattering classes – another useful Britishism – have a persistent desire for ostensibly clever ways to say stuff. They have borrowed from Wall...
How Do You Teach A Dying Language That Only Nine People Speak?
The dense Mukogodo Forest, one of the largest in east Africa, is the traditional home of the Yaaku. Originally hunter-gatherers, they looked after the 300...
Does Listening To Music While You Work Help Or Distract? The Studies Say…
Listening to instrumental or familiar music in the background competes less with a study assignment than music with lyrics or unfamiliar music. Instrumental music also seems to...
Pianist Sues Melbourne Symphony For Canceling Gig, Alledgedly For His Views On Gaza
The pianist has filed legal proceedings in the federal court, alleging MSO management cancelled the 15 August concert in Melbourne in an attempt to...
Today’s AJ Highlights
Good morning: French president Macron's idea to promote culture among young people was to offer students between 15 and 18 money to pay for...
Who’s Funding The Arts? And Does It Need To Change?
Yearslong decreases in corporate charitable giving and overall charitable giving made The Chronicle of Philanthropy ask, in January, “Has the giving crisis reached the point of no return?”...