Increases in collections from the audio streaming and audio-visual sectors pushed ASCAP’s domestic revenue to $1.011 billion in 2021, up 4.4%, an increase of $42.5 million over 2020. This was the first year that ASCAP domestic revenues from U.S.-licensed performances surpassed $1 billion. - Variety
Saying he was “taking stock of my life,” Thomas, 77, the former music director of the San Francisco Symphony, said he was reducing his administrative duties to focus on his health. - The New York Times
An open letter demanding the end of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has attracted the signatures of over 13,000 Russian art workers on Google Docs—even though speaking out against the war could have serious personal and professional consequences. - Artnet
"The city, legally obligated to care for the collection under an agreement with donor Atwater Kent, doesn't want the hassle or expense of maintaining and storing Joe Frazier's boxing gloves or John Wanamaker's boardroom throne." But critics object to the deal transferring the collection to Drexel. - MSN (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
Social media enables people to make, shape, and share anything they want and call it their own, even when it’s not—further helps to distort what we experience on these platforms. Feeds are flooded with culture that, translated through the screen of a creator who is only interested in clout, comes across as hollow and cheapened. - Wired
Seven new theatre and rehearsal spaces have been added to existing facilities at Walsh Bay (just past the bridge from the Opera House), and nine major companies have permanent homes there, including the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Bangarra Dance Theatre, Bell Shakespeare, Sydney Dance Company, and Sydney Theatre Company. - ArtsHub (Australia)
“This is all quite novel in the United States, but actually AMC has been doing it for years in our European theaters. Indeed, in Europe we charge a premium for the best seats in the house — as do just about all sellers of tickets in other industries — take sports events, concerts and live theater, for example.” -...
"I was diagnosed with autism at age 25, but I've been autistic my whole life. In many ways ballet class has been a safe place for me, even before I knew why I craved routine, environments with explicit rules, and social situations that don't necessitate talking." - Dance Magazine
What was promised to be a beautifully-designed, Pokémon-inspired NFT project called Pixelmon turned out to be a huge mess of irredeemably ugly pixel art — and investors are now furious. - Futurism
"Part bastion, part Brutalist Hanging Gardens of Babylon," it's is a city-within-a-city in the heart of old London, with apartments, schools, pubs, an artificial lake, and a major arts complex. In 1982 as now, some adore it, some abhor it, and everyone finds it confusing to navigate. - The Guardian
Del Toro commented: ”If any year was the year to think about it, this is not the year not to hear their names live at the Oscars. This is the year to sing and do it live.” - Variety
As an Angeleno with an hour-long commute, he was desperate to escape the "bad music and worse news" on radio and started listening to books recorded for the blind. Thus was born the idea for his company, Books on Tape, founded in 1975. - MSN (The Washington Post)
The 1952 design was initially commissioned by a fraternity at Indiana University, but money ran out before construction could begin in earnest. The plans were rediscovered at MoMA and the building is now open in Bloomington as the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design. - Dezeen
"Barbara Gaines will exit her position as artistic director of Chicago Shakespeare Theater, the company she founded some 36 years ago, … likely at the end of 2022, (by which point) almost all of the major Chicago-area theaters will have new artistic leadership from the pre-pandemic era." - MSN (Chicago Tribune)
