“I’ve been dreaming of this since I joined the museum a little over five years ago,” Pasternak said. “Our exhibitions and public programs have been embracing ideas for 21st-century museums, but our building is absolutely mired in the 19th century. So it’s time to catch up.” - The New York Times
Bowes Center signals a major expansion of the Conservatory of Music, which has most of its academic and performance spaces a few blocks away on Oak Street. - MSN (San Francisco Chronicle)
He "galvanized protests against the Vietnam War and started a controversial men’s movement with a best seller that called for a restoration of primal male audacity." - The New York Times
Matthew Aucoin finds impossibility to be a constant in the history of opera. “The art form’s first practitioners, in seventeenth-century Italy strove to re-create the effect of ancient Greek drama, which of course they had never heard.” - The New Yorker
Those without the vision to produce art as means toward an end, rather than the end itself, have placated the wealthy donors who are also the users of the product. - Alan Harrison
The Catherine Project’s commitment, borne out beautifully by our seminars thus far, is that great books are supremely egalitarian: They move and challenge us all alike. Indeed, what proves great books great is that they’ve stood the test of time. - Hedgehog Review
The 19th century brought about the popularization of the proscenium arch: an architectural feature that effectively separates the audience from the actors on stage. Alongside this structural shift, a change in lighting also reinforced the separation between audience and performers. - The Conversation
Hough played the first live, streamed concert after shutdown to an empty hall in London. "It was a reminder of how important a cog music is in life. Don’t take it for granted. Tell our political leaders it’s not just entertainment." - The Observer (UK)
Photos of animals bypass logic and get directly to the heart. One photographer makes sure her subjects are looking directly at the camera: "We don’t have a common language, and like eye contact between humans, it creates such a connection." - Hyperallergic
It's not a direct adaptation: "Miranda and his co-writer Steven Levenson (Dear Evan Hansen) have added music from Larson's other shows, tweaked some of the character arcs and even removed an entire subplot about Twinkies." - BBC
"Given the anxious state of the world today, watching the show has started to feel uncannily like doomscrolling through a social-media feed." That's mixed with daffy bits, of course - just like Twitter. - The Atlantic
Mary Ellen Goree, principal second violin: "I cannot sit on stage in my chair knowing that 26 of my colleagues lost their jobs just so I could hold onto two-thirds of mine. ... It’s a moral issue." - Spectrum News (San Antonio)
"What we don’t know — about the lives of our neighbors and fellow citizens and why they think the way they do — is almost as important as what we do know." - The New York Times
