“I’d call the mood mutinous. If you’re writing royal stories or big political news or coronavirus stuff or you’re famous then you’re going to get huge numbers. Most reporters are at the mercy of editors and it’s not their fault if they’re getting assigned boring things – and now that’s going to affect their pay packet.” - The Guardian
To help break this inertia, we must confront a work that has left indelible marks on music in this country: Antonin Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony. To grasp in full the complex legacy of this classic piece would allow us to move beyond it, fostering new paths for artists of color. - The New York Times
For all the talk of robust online viewing rooms and hybrid auctions, with sales reportedly doubling in 2020, all market segments “experienced declines last year, creating the biggest recession in the global art market since the financial crisis of 2009,” Art Basel Americas director Noah Horowitz writes in the introduction to the study. - Artnet
“It took 25 years for me to reach a point in my career where I was constantly preparing for the next orchestra concert, opera performance, or recording session. Not having goals to work toward really messes with your head." - San Francisco Classical Voice
"Museums have at times withheld information about thefts, fearing that revealing security weaknesses could make other institutions less likely to loan them art or that it could encourage other thefts, according to current and former museum officials. Art security experts say the failure to report thefts, particularly involving items stolen from storage, has prevented museums from recovering items." -...
"Here millennials sit, following begrudgingly in the boomers’ wake, at the centre of a generational Venn diagram: in the unique position of having CDs, vinyl and iTunes and streaming. For the best part of a year now, it’s been time for a clearout: so as we edge back to something resembling a normal life, dare we take the ultimate...
Constant bullying at school (he was the headmaster's son, and he paid for it); repeated adolescent suicide attempts; Benzedrine and Nembutal and lots (and lots) of alcohol (and opium if he was in the right country for it). Both under and above it all, bipolar disorder, which Greene "saw … as key to his personality and his work." -...
"I’m taking my cues from the health experts, who are preaching a different message from state, city and municipal officials. While COVID-19 new infections, hospitalizations and deaths have been dramatically declining since the post-holiday surges, the number of new cases has plateaued at a still worrisome level." - Los Angeles Times
"'What would you do if you had no idea when a season would begin, what venue capacity you could perform in and what the cast size can be for repertory?' says Larissa Saveliev, founder and artistic director of Youth America Grand Prix of roster building. 'The old rules don't apply anymore.' With all the uncertainty, what is hiring and...
"All around the country, companies that normally produce outdoors but were unable to do so last year are making plans to reopen, while those that normally play to indoor crowds are finding ways to take the show outside. This is not business as usual." - The New York Times
"Some 30 theatres and concert halls are occupied in Strasbourg, Lille, Nantes, Châteauroux, Toulouse, Besançon, Marseille, and Saint-Etienne. All of the culture workers inside are asking for the same help from authorities, and conveying the same concerns and frustrations." - Artnet
In a letter to school boards last week, which was leaked to the media, Kabul’s Education Department said girls aged 12 and above would no longer be able to sing at public events, unless the events were attended solely by women. The letter also stipulated that girls couldn’t be trained by a male music teacher. - The Guardian
Levine had been in precarious health for more than a decade, canceling many of his performances after 2008 and undergoing spinal surgery. Even when conducting from a wheelchair, he remained a vigorous and indefatigable presence in American cultural life far beyond the rarefied opera world — widely considered the country’s most influential conductor since Leonard Bernstein. But accusations of...
The "Icarus of subscription services" seemed too good to be true when it started selling $9.99-a-month memberships that would let you see a movie in a theater literally every day — and so it was. The more customers it got, the more cash it hemorrhaged, and it died a long, humiliating death over the course of 2019. But this...
"The Israel Antiquities Authority, which carried out the excavations, believes the new scroll, written in Greek, is actually a missing part of the “Book of the 12 Minor Prophets” scroll, first discovered in 1961. … Dating from the third century BC to the first century AD, the parchment and papyrus manuscripts contain the earliest known texts from the Hebrew...
