"Since 2022, the chain’s last two stores were located in the Ohio Valley Mall in St. Clairsville, Ohio, and the Rogue Valley Mall in Medford, Oregon. According to reports, both are now set to close early next year." - Rolling Stone (Yahoo!)
While the practice currently seems to be most common in Europe, it's been documented from the US to India to Australia as well. Groups use pop idioms from hip-hop to Eurovision-Song-Contest style and won't hesitate to use the voices of stars such as Céline Dion and politicians such as Narendra Modi. - ArtsHub
Preliminary injunction, obtained on Monday by AFP, orders Sony and Universal to stop “immediately and globally, from using, reproducing, editing, distributing or commercializing the song Million Years Ago, by any modality, means, physical or digital support, streaming or sharing platform”. - The Guardian
The injunction requires Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music to stop distributing Adele's "Million Years Ago" in any and every format during an ongoing plagiarism claim by a Brazilian composer. The Brazilian subsidiaries of the labels will be fined $8,000 "per act of non-compliance." - AFP (Yahoo!)
“I have my opinions, but I will not tell you. I didn’t want to take part in the search, so I was completely out of it. As I should be. So I didn’t even know the person that they chose. No, because I do not keep up with what happens here or there with other orchestras in Oslo or...
"Eighty-five is a milestone, no matter one’s field. That, though, isn’t what Brouwer is celebrating. No, all she’s really thinking about are the commissions on her plate and the stack of older works awaiting revision or arrangement for other instruments." - The Land (Cleveland)
It’s an enlightening moment, one of many it turns out, in “Paris & Nicole,” a three-episode lark about Hilton and Richie reuniting to write an opera based on their decades of friendship. This art form, they learn with jaws dropped, isn’t easy. - The New York Times
Aside from Yunchan Lim and Vilde Frang, a notable (if challenging) development is that “the age of the all-star studio-made opera recording is very much over. DVDs of stage productions now easily outnumber new audio-only opera sets.” - The Guardian (UK)
British musicians Sheku and Isata Kanneh-Mason bought a ticket for Sheku’s cello, but Air Canada said no way. That forced the siblings, who were scheduled for a sold-out concert in Toronto, to cancel at the last minute. - CBC
When an artist is inevitably asked “what’s the meaning behind this song?” and they give a literal answer, it immediately closes down the different ways a listener can interpret it. - The Conversation
Just a day before the catastrophic 2017 blaze that nearly destroyed Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, a smaller fire broke out in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. Neither organ suffered major damage, but both had toxic dust fill their thousands of pipes — and both are now resounding once more. - The New York...
That's the annual gala opening the season at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, which (by long tradition) happens on December 7. And there are always major celebrities and politicians, fabulous clothes, demonstrators for a variety of causes, and a big media circus. Oh, and superstitions. - The New York Times
"The deal … promises to maintain the current compensation and performance levels for the 32 paid choristers during the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons. … The breakthrough, which includes retroactive application of the agreement from Aug. 1, was made possible by the generous donation from an anonymous patron." - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)
Art is a con. That’s why it’s great. I’ve always said art should lower gross domestic product; it shouldn’t be there to bolster efficiency, or do a certain thing. It’s a shamanistic thing that is essentially founded on a belief that you can buy into, or not. - The New York Times
