Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
More Of Us Are Abandoning Cash. Is This Wise?
The economic and enforcement arguments against cash may stack up nicely, but a payment isn’t just an economic or administrative act; it is a...
Where, Exactly, Did The Blues Originate?
Every one of the hypotheses has some evidence to support it, although not every case is equally convincing. - Ted Gioia
Australian Ballet Goes All In
“To be the nation’s ballet company, to be one of the leading arts organisations in the country, we have to not only do a...
We Live In An Isolating Culture. The Arts Are Swimming Upstream
Collecting people in a certain space, at a certain time, on a certain date, in a certain seat, to see an unknown quantity —...
Fired San Antonio Symphony Conductor Speaks Out
“I think this is really to be seen as a hostile action against the musicians more than against me. Now you're undermining the efforts...
Sorry, But Paris Is Dead
Paris is dead, and many people like it that way. Living in the ruins of an old Cathedral, Parisians are the ivy that overtake...
Streaming Subscription Fatigue Taking Hold In The UK?
Just 3% of UK households signed up to a new video streaming subscription in Q1 2022, compared to 4.2% during the same period in...
Immersive Theatre Company Punchdrunk Signs Worldwide Representation Deal
Founded in 2000 by Felix Barrett, the British firm has developed a passionate fanbase thanks to its unique form of immersive theater, which leaves...
Special Challenges For Some Participants In The Venice Biennale
For artists and curators from countries that have been hit hardest by Covid-19 or those that have struggled most to foot the bill—presentations require...
The World’s Biggest Arts Event Returns — But Has It Learned To Manage The...
A record-breaking 3841 Fringe shows were registered in 2019, consequently, like many in Edinburgh I enjoyed having ‘my’ city back in the summer of...
A Makeover Of A San Diego Contemporary Museum Defies Critics’ Concerns
The redesign, led by the firm’s founder, Annabelle Selldorf, has gracefully unified a jumble of buildings from various eras, added 30,000 square feet of...
Are Netflix’s Glory Days Over?
Globally Netflix announced it expected to add only 2.5 million new subscribers in the first three months of the year, well down on the...
Flameout: When Pop Stars’ Careers Suddenly End
The writing on the wall is only easy to read in hindsight. At the time, it’s all a blur. - The Guardian
How The World Is Uncoupling From Russian Artists And Culture
Few places now seem to epitomise Russia’s cultural decoupling from the west better than the large, empty walls of GES-2, created as Moscow’s answer...
American Conductor Quits Post At Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre
“There’s no way I could ever be in denial of what is happening in Ukraine,” he said during a series of interviews over the...
Composer Harrison Birtwistle, 87
Birtwistle's work was widely championed by many notable conductors, including Daniel Barenboim, Simon Rattle, Christoph von Dohnányi and Oliver Knussen, as well as soloists...
Pianist Radu Lupu, 76
Lupu had retired from public performances in 2019, after several years of canceling many engagements due to poor health, and had not recorded since the mid-1990s....
What’s The Point Of Canceling Russian Artists?
"Cultural boycotting as an acceptable collateral consequence of war is egregious. There’s no reason to discriminate against individuals. Thousands in Russia, as well as...
Ann Hutchinson Guest, 103, Specialist In Dance Notation
Hutchinson Guest was knowledgeable about a number of dance notation systems, which seek to preserve choreography as its creators intended rather than relying on...
Artists, Musicians Seek To Overturn California Law On Binding Contracts
The Free Artists from Industry Restrictions Act would overhaul California’s Seven Year Statute, removing a damages provision that discourages artists from leaving record deals...
AI Is Getting Awfully Good At Writing. This Has Big Implications
It turns out that with enough training data and sufficiently deep neural nets, large language models can display remarkable skill if you ask them...
Great Bookstores: The 130-Year-Old Pasadena Icon
By 1915, Vroman’s could count traveling dignitaries, engineers, scientists, men of finance and New York book editors as customers. Anticipating their requests, the store...
Here We Go Again — Is The Shroud Of Turin Real?
This week sees the release of a new film, Who Can He Be?, in which David Rolfe argues that, far from the shroud being a definite...
We Praise Creativity. But We Shy Away From It
Research has found that we actually harbor an aversion to creators and creativity; subconsciously, we see creativity as noxious and disruptive, and as a recent...
The Netflix Of Theatre? An NYC Theatre Gives It A Try
The pitch is to build something like Netflix or Spotify, where members pay an affordable monthly subscription fee in exchange for access to all...
