The very act of conducting—waving a wand to summon ravishing or ethereal or earsplitting sounds—can look like either inexplicable magic or embarrassing nonsense, a kind of tuxedoed air guitar. - The Atlantic
The composer’s handwritten score of his Symphony No. 2 (“Resurrection”) was donated to the Cleveland Orchestra a few years ago, a gift which brought Welser-Möst, the organization’s longtime music director, to tears. He leads a reporter (and readers) through three pages of the manuscript which he finds especially fascinating. - The New York Times
Spotify will begin labeling AI-generated artists with “AI Persona” profile tags and ban their music from its editorial and algorithmic recommendations, the company announced on Tuesday. - TechCrunch
Now the problem is how to let in the good bots (like the avatar you send to the Gap to buy you a new pair of pants) and keep out the bad bots (like the thief trying to scrape the data of every Gap customer). The rest of us have to be our own bot detectors. - The New Yorker
Anthropic said that all models released after August 2 will automatically have tech to watermark both computer-generated text and files. For files, the company is using the C2PA open standard. - TechCrunch
The extremely careful handling of the fragile cloth and the custom-made equipment to protect the piece from vibrations while in transit weren’t the only part of the process: it was almost as complicated a project to get France to agree to the Tapestry being moved in the first place. - The Times (UK)
ATG Entertainment (originally Ambassador Theatre Group) owns seven Broadway houses, ten London venues, numerous theatres in Europe, and the discount app TodayTix. Now Emanuel’s company Mari, which owns Frieze art fairs and two large pro tennis tournaments, has agreed to acquire ATG for a rumored $6 billion. - The Hollywood Reporter
“David Ellison is eager to reach a swift resolution in the antitrust case filed by 12 states seeking to block the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger. And he’s prepared start moving Paramount out of California as soon as October unless the state’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, agrees to settlement talks.” - Variety
“A perusal of the archives shows how rich the Dance Division’s history has been, with a roster of teachers and students that reflects the arc of American dance in the 20th century. And the curriculum, a mix of ballet and modern dance, once seen as eccentric, now is the norm.” - The New York Times
The German-born, New York-based composer-conductor, who is also music director of the Kansas City Symphony, succeeds Jamie Martín at the helm of the LACO as of the 2027-28 season. - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)
Early last year the Giller Prize broke ties with its longtime sponsor Scotiabank — leaving it without the means to support the C$100,000 award and other programs. Now the foundation which stepped up with C$! million in bridge funding has made a C$4 million donation to keep the Giller going longer-term. - The Canadian Press (MSN)
A May 2025 symposium about race issues in the art of the US and Mexico, created and organized by the National Gallery, was abruptly moved offsite and scrubbed from the museum’s website — a decision made, says a former executive, after a visit from Trump’s DOGE. - The New York Times
"Our contention is that, if we fail to think through and delimit the role of AI in our lives, we risk undermining the intelligibility of our own guiding cultural concepts, and thus initiating a period in our own society of which it may someday be possible to say that “nothing happened.” - The Point
Today, almost no one seems to be looking to the hues of jelly beans for inspiration for their home—or car or couch or fridge or practically anything else. Since the late 2000s, essentially colorless colors—think white, beige, gray—have taken over. - The Atlantic
“The process for the selection and siting of the Triumphal Arch has been horrifically flawed from the outset. Remarkably, there was no design competition, which is a dangerous and radical decision for what would be the second largest monument in the Monumental Core after the Washington Monument.” - Los Angeles Times
