“The move not to produce this year is meant to allow the organization to continue to rethink its future after a period of radical change. Leadership is still deciding whether Williamstown will skip only this summer or move into producing the flagship festival on a biennial basis.” - The Washington Post (MSN)
Paul Dien, the chief marketing officer who oversaw that rebrand, has resigned. New director/CEO Daniel Weiss has set up a task force of staffers and board members to evaluate the rebranding and examine “what works, what doesn’t work, to do some analytical work around that.” - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
The company is laying off 22 of its 284 administrative staffers, reducing pay for 35 of its top executives (including general director Peter Gelb and music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin), and dropping one production from next season’s schedule. - The Guardian
The greeting’s first known appearance in print happened 200 years ago this week in a Connecticut newspaper, but its roots go back at least two centuries further, probably more. - BBC
The intensity of the workout was necessary to take her out of her head, so that she could write from a different place—“an embodied place, because writing is not just intellectual; it’s emotional connection, sensual connection,” she explained. “We exist in the world.” - The Atlantic
The women of 18th-century Venice’s ospedali (homes for the destitute, the sick, and orphans) are remembered largely because Vivaldi composed music for them. History has mostly overlooked them in favor of the famous men around them, but we now know that they were highly trained, ferociously talented, and deeply ambitious. - Early Music America
Ten years in, Condo's cooperative model has emerging dealers singing Kumbaya while actually making money. Who knew that playing nice could be the art world's best-kept business secret? — Artnet News
When your culture minister cancels a Palestinian grief exhibition for Venice, you've officially entered the realm where politics trumps artistic integrity. Two scholars aren't having it, calling out the betrayal. — Hyperallergic
Another year, another promise to "redefine" art institutions. But this conversation with curator eunice bélidor and administrator Dejha Carrington might actually cut through the usual reform rhetoric to examine what museums are really for. — Hyperallergic
It says a lot that this orchestra is confident enough to let a critic see it rehearse from start to finish, on the record. Perhaps it says more that I was not allowed to sit onstage, to guard against distractions. - The New York Times
“On TripAdvisor, one user warns: ‘Don’t waste your money!’ Another pleads: ‘Kill me now!’ And yet, since 1987, Perfect Crime has been running eight times a week. Every performance stars the same actress, Catherine Russell; in nearly four decades she has missed only four performances.” - The Times (UK)
The National Endowment for the Humanities on Thursday announced $71 million in new grants, including nearly $40 million to classical humanities institutes and civic leadership programs that have been promoted by conservatives as a counterweight to liberal-dominated higher education. - The New York Times
Most of us are by now familiar with the broad mechanisms of the “attention economy” – the hijacking and monetising of consumer attention through addictive channels. The ravages of this system are ever more apparent. - The Observer
A massive replica of a birthday note and crude drawing signed with the typed name Donald J. Trump and a “Donald” signature that was part of a 2003 book of birthday wishes for the deceased convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was placed on the National Mall early Monday morning. - Washington Post
“When an obscure play called The Kholops opened in St. Petersburg in 2024, many Russians raced to see it, fearful that the authorities would quickly shut (it) down. … Nearly two years later, the doors remain open and the seats packed for The Kholops, written in 1907 by Pyotr Gnedich.” - The New York Times
