That phrase is how one potential investor rejected Andrew Lloyd Webber’s proposal to stage the rock opera he wrote with Tim Rice. (That's why it first appeared as a concept album.) Here's how Superstar got to Broadway— and what happened when it did. - The New York Times
Just as your memory is a construction, so are your senses. Everything you see, hear, smell, taste, and feel is the result of some combination of stuff outside and inside your head. - MIT Technology Review
Stutzmann, a former contralto from France who's currently principal guest conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, will start an initial four-year term at the ASO's helm next fall. She'll be the only woman currently serving as music director of a year-round orchestra in the US. - The New York Times
In a Q&A, two senior executives at Chicago Public Media (WBEZ) say that they no plans to reduce the newspaper's seven-days-per-week print schedule and that, far from imposing layoffs, they expect to hire 40 to 50 new staffers. - Medill Local News Initiative
"Renovation is a weak term for this undertaking. … Acousticians scrutinized every block and beam in the auditorium and the architects bent their design to the properties of sound." Justin Davidson looks into what made David Geffen Hall's sound problematic and how it's being fixed. - New York Magazine
Hoo-boy. "The new Netflix Hub at Walmart will bring Netflix-branded gadgets, clothes, music and games to Walmart's online store exclusively. … (It) will also include programs … like a crowd-sourcing feature called 'Netflix Fan Select' that allows fans to vote on which merchandise they'd like to see." - Axios
After criticism for programming few plays by women this season, culminating in Jeremy O. Harris pulling Slave Play from the schedule there, CTG says that the entire 2022-23 season at Mark Taper Forum will be plays by female or nonbinary writers, mostly BIPOC. - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)
For nearly 60 years, playing his tin whistle and uilleann pipes, he and his supergroup brought Irish traditional music to the world, making nearly 40 albums, winning six Grammys, and selling many millions of concert tickets and records. - The Washington Post
That's what they're hoping for in Munich, where the Gasteig has closed for a multiyear renovation. Both the city's orchestras will be performing at the Isarphilharmonie, assembled for only $46 million but custom-designed with (very successful) acoustics by Yasuhisa Toyota. - The New York Times
For one thing, there is no empirical basis for claiming that differences within a generation are smaller than differences between generations. - The New Yorker
Other worlds and other possibilities aren’t just about kind of fantasy possibilities, but actual other worlds that exist alongside us now. And that can hopefully help make what we’re doing mean more and maybe make a difference in the lives of those around us. - The Conversation
Ted Sarandos wrote that, although some people may find stand-up comedy to be “mean-spirited,” “our members enjoy it, and it’s an important part of our content offering.” - Washington Post
If the “Internet novel” or “Instagram novel” are ascendant genres in today’s literary marketplace, Tolstoy Together is an impressive nonfiction cousin. It sits merrily on the fence between a type of collective criticism and a commonplace book filled to bursting with clever ruminations and quotations. - The Smart Set
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University collected more than 86.6 million comments from more than 6.5 million users on 200,000 YouTube videos, then analyzed them using an AI technique normally employed to translate between two languages. - Wired
It wasn’t so long ago that people were worried that automation would put them out of work. Ironically, instead, people chose to quit jobs they hated, and now companies are scrambling to automate to replace them. - 3 Quarks Daily
