"The question now is what a thin-skinned showman will do with an institution of music, theater and dance ... central to Washington’s cultural life for more than 50 years." Many observers in DC expect more country music. (Steve Bannon suggests that the J6 Prison Choir sing for opening night.) - The New York Times
The producer/convicted rapist filed suit against Bob Weinstein and two other formers executives of the Weinstein Company his brother last week in New York state court for fraud and misappropriation of funds. The action adds those men as third parties to a suit filed against Harvey in 2017. - TheWrap
"A group of independent publishers has formally incorporated as the Publishers Cooperative, a new organization aimed at leveraging collective buying power and sharing resources. The cooperative … is currently seeking seven additional mid-sized publishers to join its eight founding members." - Publishers Weekly
"The boom is being spearheaded by Tirana's mayor, Erion Veliaj ... and Albanian prime minister and fellow Socialist Edi Rama. They have made architecture and urban design a key part of the strategy to boost Tirana's international reputation as Albania seeks to attract more tourists and sustain economic growth." - Dezeen
The bibliophobia of the title, Chihaya assures us, only “occasionally manifests as an acute, literal fear of books.” More often, it “develops as a generalized anxiety about reading in patients who have previously experienced profound — perhaps too profound — attachments to books and literature.” - Washington Post
School play gets canceled for "inappropriate content". In response students write , their own anti-censorship play skewering the school district, sells out performances, and ultimately takes gold at the Lenaea High School Theatre Festival. - KQED
The 9½-hour length of the finished documentary is daunting enough, but Lanzmann culled it from 220 hours of footage. His grant from one government was withdrawn because he worked so slowly, he had perpetual difficulty getting other funding, and he had to go undercover to get Nazis on camera. - The Guardian
If genes and grit are not entirely responsible for the persistence of professional musical families across generations, what else matters? There are several possibilities. - Nightingale Sonata
Organizations across disciplines operated at a small deficit for the first time in five years in 2023. Choruses, by contrast, were still operating at a surplus on average. In 2019, about two thirds of the choruses reported surpluses, while in 2023 roughly half still reported surpluses. - SMU Cultural Data
The key findings of the Annual Field Report are drawn from the fiscal year 2023 data submitted by OPERA America’s Professional Company Members (PCMs) in the annual Professional Opera Survey administered by SMU Data Arts. - Opera America
"Bochner was one of the key artists associated with the Conceptualist movement during the 1960s and ’70s. In legendary pieces that hardly looked much like art at all, he offered measurements, numbers, words, and others’ photocopied drawings within galleries. There was often little to admire, and that was intentional." - ARTnews
Marching band is more than a pastime. It’s an extreme sport. The real reason the students rehearse so hard isn’t to play well at football games. It’s to prepare for a series of fiercely competitive marching-band contests in the fall, culminating in the Grand National Championships, in Indianapolis. - The New Yorker
Eight in 10 event-goers are planning to attend either the same number of events, or more, compared to last year.
Gen Zs, in particular, are looking to add more live experiences to their calendars. - ArtsHub
Only recently has the human collective begun accepting the fact it is itself mortal. We now appreciate that events unfolded for aeons before us and that our species can disappear, never to return. One day, the cosmos will persist without human witness, nor any inherent tendency to manifest things we cherish. - Aeon
Joshua Barone makes the case for such works as Samuel Barber's Vanessa, Kurt Weill and Langston Hughes’s Street Scene, Marc Blitzstein’s Regina, Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah, and Douglas Moore’s The Ballad of Baby Doe. - The New York Times
