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ASCAP Reports Record Revenue For 2021

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

Michael Tilson Thomas Announces He Has Cancer, Will Step Back From New World Symphony

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

13,000 Russian Artists Demand Putin Quit Ukraine

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

Can The City Of Philadelphia Just Hand Over Its History Collection To Drexel University? A Court Will Decide

"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)

How Social Media Distorts Culture

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

A Major New Arts Center Opens On Sydney Harbour

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)

AMC Movie Theatres Experiment With Variable Ticket Pricing

“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.” -...

An Autistic Dancer Explains Why Ballet Is A Good Discipline For Her

"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

NFT Investors Furious Over The Quality Of The Art They Bought

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

Love It Or Loathe It, It’s Architectural History In Concrete: London’s Barbican At 40

"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

Guillermo del Toro To Oscars: This Isn’t The Year To Change Things

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

Duvall Hecht, Pioneer Of Commercial Audiobooks, Dead At 91

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)

Forgotten Design By Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe Has Now Been Built

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

Another Major Chicago Theater Is Losing Its Longtime Director

"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)

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