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Universal Music Makes AI Deal With Spotify On New Tool

The new tool will launch as a paid add-on for Spotify Premium users, the companies said on Thursday (May 21), creating what they described as an additional revenue stream for artists and songwriters on top of existing Spotify royalties. - MusicBusinessWorldwide

Trump Panel Approves Trump Arch

Thursday’s vote by the Commission of Fine Arts, whose job is to vet the design of monuments and other major projects in the capital, represents a key approval as the White House seeks to begin construction. - Washington Post

AI Passes Turing Test For The First Time

Researchers discovered that when equipped with specific “persona” prompts, advanced models like GPT-4.5 were judged to be human 73% of the time, significantly outperforming actual human participants and fundamentally altering our understanding of machine intelligence. - Neuroscience News

San Francisco Symphony Picks A Music Director

The appointment is a historic one. Chan will be the first woman to lead one of the so-called “Big 7” symphony orchestras in the United States, encompassing New York, Boston, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and Philadelphia. - KQED

Annabelle Lopez Ochoa: Why I Choreograph

“I choreograph because it is the only language in which I feel completely uninhibited. … Words remain fragile. They can be misinterpreted or fail to capture the depth of what we truly mean. Movement, however, transcends the invisible barriers that divide us — culture, borders, language, religion — and speaks directly to something instinctive.” - Dance Magazine

Adjusted For Inflation, Ticket Prices In London’s West End Have Actually Fallen Since Pandemic

“In the West End, average ticket prices rose by a nominal 0.92 per cent over the last year. When measured against the annual UK inflation rate of 3.4 per cent, this represents a real-terms price drop of 2.5% for consumers. Compared to 2019, this real-term drop extends to 8.9%.” - WhatsOnStage (UK)

Was The Off-Broadway Production Of “Titanique” Defrauded By Its Own General Manager?

That’s the allegation in a lawsuit filed by the production company (called Iceberg Ahead LLC) in Virginia against former general manager Carl Flanigan. In March the company won a $4.3 million default judgment against Flanigan, who never responded to the suit. - Broadway Journal

Paramount’s Credit Rating Gets Further Downgraded After Warner Deal

Currently S&P Global has a “BB+” issuer credit rating on Paramount. On Wednesday, the firm said it will “lower the issuer credit rating on PSKY to ‘BB’ when its acquisition of WBD closes, assuming no material changes to the structure or terms of the transaction. - Variety

How Does Your Brain Process Beauty?

“Neuroaesthetics is a search to give a value, a quantity, to beauty—to locate it, perhaps, in the brain and in the heart.” - Smithsonian

The Perils Of Writing With AI When You Don’t Check

My fellow nonfiction writers: AI can be a helpful tool. If you rely on it for factual accuracy you are putting your reputation, your career, your very livelihood in peril. - The AI Humanist

The Man Who Invented Dinner Theater, William Pullinsi, Has Died At 86

“The founding artistic director of the Candlelight Dinner Playhouse in southwest suburban (Chicagoland), (he was) widely regarded as the founder of dinner theater in America.” - Chicago Tribune (Yahoo!)

Orchestra Report Card: Something New Is Changing The Field

Until the new conductors settle in, we won’t fully know how transformative their impact will be, but early signs suggest they could accelerate changes already reshaping the field since Covid—in programming, outreach, diversity, education, and institutional purpose. - Strings Magazine

No Transparency: Palm Springs Museum Refuses To Release Report On Investigation Into Fraud And Theft

The whistleblower complaint made numerous detailed allegations. Among them are claims that the museum improperly reclassified funds in its endowment to meet cash crunches. - ARTnews

National Trust Lists America’s 11 Most-Endangered Historic Places

Among those selected are two sites that have drawn the ire of the Trump administration, the Stonewall National Monument in New York, often considered the birthplace of the gay right’s movement, and the President’s House Site in Philadelphia, which served as the presidential home prior to the capital’s relocation to Washington. - ARTnews

U.S. Has Halted Flight Of Film Production Overseas (At Least For Now)

“Data from the first quarter of 2026 shows signs that the United States is halting the exodus of film and television productions to other countries. But it is doing so as greenlights on high-budget productions continue to decrease worldwide, leaving dozens of production hubs fighting for slices of a smaller pie.” - TheWrap (Yahoo!)

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