AJBlogs

We're now focused on "doping tests" to determine if artists have cheated. Rather than pee in a bottle, however, we're depending on AI detector tools and documentary proof of human creation. Did the Foundation double down to ask what's the best writing? No. They cared more about how it was made. Perhaps that's important. Of course it is. But, in a way, it's now an impossible question. Moreover, it may ultimately be the wrong question.

We know from our research that people love the arts. All kinds of people. Pretty much everyone—provided we talk about it in a way they recognize. I was reminded of this over the weekend when the news came of Simon Leis passing. There are a lot of creative touchpoints to his story. If you aren’t

Brent Ott, Chief Operating Officer of The Henry Ford, talks about their historic exhibits and programming celebrating America 250.

 The Observer says Colin Asher's new book will “transform” the way you see art. Booklist calls it “mesmerizing.” Publisher’s Weekly likes it; Alex Gershman dives deep into the book on his YouTube Channel; Maurice Chammah drills down on Ike White, one of the book's featured musicians, in a discussion with Asher at The Marshall Project. And more to come ...  

Visiting Zurich earlier this week, I was eager to sample the Zurich Opera in Wagner. They are bringing the Ring to Carnegie

Senar Switzerland’s idyllic Lake Lucerne, bounded by majestic mountains, was famously the site of two composer’s homes. Sergei Rachmaninoff built

The collagist John Heartfield defined "The Meaning of the Hitler Salute": "Little man asks for large gifts." Or in Trump terms, "demands big bribes."

Corie Benton, President-Elect of the American String Teachers Association, shares the critical role of diverse voices in music training.

The major disconnect of contemporary culture: Findability has detached from the ability of traditional cultural narratives to agree on what's important. Instead of art evolving in coherent strands that are traceable and linear, there are now multiple cultural universes, each with their own languages and conventions. Each has its own creative masters, famous within that universe. But from the outside, these adjacent universes are all but invisible and their languages opaque.

I’ve received three memorable responses to my recent blog – also posted on Arts Fuse — pondering whether the Kennedy Center might become, or might

Today’s “Arts Fuse” publishes my latest thoughts about the Kennedy Center: With the fate of the Kennedy Center for the

Sterling Elliott, Sphinx Artist & Cellist, shares the role arts organizations and family played in his journey to leadership.

The critic Henry Krehbiel notoriously called Gustav Mahler’s New York career a failure, undone by “foolishness and naivete.” Most accounts

There is no simple explanation for anything important any of us do, and the human tragedy, or the human irony, consists in the necessity of living with the consequences of actions performed under the pressure of compulsions so obscure we do not and cannot understand them. (Hugh MacLennan, The Watch Ends the Night (1958)). Some personal history When I was in high school, I...

(Lee J. Cobb and Mildred Dunnock in the original Broadway production of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, 1949). In a guest essay in the New York Times, former Washington Post theater critic Naveen Kumar writes that “Broadway is Serving Up Liberal Comfort Food.” His piece concludes: Not everyone goes to the theater hoping to be confronted with big questions, the kind that compel audiences to...