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Donald Pippin, San Francisco’s Pied Piper Of Opera, Dead At 95

For 40 years, he and his resourceful company, Pocket Opera, used young singers, small instrumental groups, and librettos in English to bring unfamiliar works to thousands of new audience members. His dozens of libretto translations are still in use all over the globe. - San Francisco Classical Voice

How Musical Memories Evolve

Our unreliable memories of musical events are only partly the result of faulty powers of recall. Another contributing factor is the aging process. - The Nightingale's Sonata

What Happens If An Archivist Sneezes On A Centuries-Old Manuscript?

First, for God's sake, he shouldn't wipe it off himself. (This lesson was learned the hard way.) Beyond that, there are ways of repairing the damage, or at least keeping it from getting worse. - The Atlantic

Pornhub Is Now Offering Virtual Museum Tours

The website has launched "Classic Nudes", a curated selection of NSFW art at the Louvre, the Met, the Prado, etc. View the works online or in person with your phone; adult actor Asa Akira is your audio guide. The promo video features none other than Jeff Koons's ex, Cicciolina. (second item) - Artlyst

California Budgets $50 Million In Pandemic Relief For Small Theaters

"The subsidy came after intense lobbying from small theaters concerned about their future after a 15-month shutdown. Compounding the effects was the prospect of sharply increased labor costs for many theaters as a result of a new gig worker law that took effect in 2020." - The New York Times

Court Throws Out Judge Roy Moore’s Lawsuit Against Sacha Baron Cohen

The former Alabama jurist and Senate candidate sued the actor/mockumentarian over the scene in the Netflix series Who Is America? in which Baron Cohen's supposed "anti-terrorism expert" wields a supposed "pedophile detector" which goes off as it gets close to Moore. - The Hollywood Reporter

Meet Spoleto Festival USA’s First New General Director In 35 Years

Succeeding longtime chief Nigel Redden in October is Egyptian-American musicologist Mena Mark Hanna, a teacher, composer, Coptic Orthodox cantor (!), and former administrator at Houston Grand Opera. He is currently dean at the Barenboim-Said Akademie in Berlin. - The Post and Courier (Charleston)

Can The Metropolitan Opera Start Its Season On Time? It’s Up To The Musicians’ Union

The company, which was having money troubles even before the pandemic, finally has agreements with the unions for onstage (AGMA) and backstage (IATSE) workers. But negotiations over pay cuts with Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians, which represents the orchestra, drag on. - The New York Times

Italy Bans Cruise Ships From Venice (And They Mean It This Time!)

An announcement to this effect was made earlier this year, but the mammoth passenger boats turned up anyway. But now the national government, eager to avoid UNESCO "World Heritage in Danger" status, has made it feasible for the rule to take effect August 1. - Reuters

Security Guards Curate Baltimore Museum Show

“I was struck and moved by the extraordinarily personal, cogent arguments that each officer made for their selection, which was so different from the intellectual and filtered approach that a trained curator would take.” - The Art Newspaper

A Music Critic Reconsiders The Star Spangled Banner As A Piece Of Music

What if, after 90 years, we took a diagnostic check on this venerable musical document to see whether it still works as intended? - San Francisco Chronicle

What Jerry Saltz’s Rejection Of Substack Really Means

"Some more enterprising major-media columnists sometimes compare Substack to the broadsheets of journalism’s early decades in the 1800s, though they do this, invariably, as a means of dismissing digital newsletters as retrograde." - Seth Abramson

How Mathematical Models Gave Us An Advantage With COVID

Enormously useful mathematical tools that have been put to work during the pandemic—from classical differential equations to more recent techniques such as Monte Carlo methods and Markov chains—were in many cases invented by mathematicians who had no particular goal in mind. - Nautilus

Oklahoma City Ballet Sues Insurance Company Over Denied COVID Claims

“An all risk policy is to cover any loss that you have during the policy period, unless it is specifically excluded.” - KFOR

France Fines Google $593 Million Over News Sharing

It is "one of the first attempts to apply a new copyright directive adopted by the European Union intended to force internet platforms like Google and Facebook to compensate news organizations for their content." - The New York Times

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