Art

In 1994, Philip Glass wrote six seemingly ordinary piano etudes for conductor and pianist Dennis Russell Davies on the occasion of his 50th birthday. Glass also wrote them for himself. Etudes are traditionally studies in technique, and here they’re an ever-pragmatic composer’s exercises to improve his own playing. Davies gave the premiere in Bonn, Germany,

A comprehensive study spearheaded by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics provides evidence that people tend to show a predisposition towards rhythms formed by simple integer ratios regardless of cultural background. Despite these universal tendencies, the study revealed significant variations in rhythm preferences across different societies,

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The end of the world is in the air. Should we be surprised? The climate emergency claws at every aspect of our lives, from holidays to the cost of food. We’ve just lived through a global pandemic. War in Europe continues, while the UN describes a genocide emerging in Gaza. The news is not good.

by Martin Butler Recently I read an article which included the idea that nature can have rights, something I have to admit I had not come across before, despite a keen awareness that nature needs protecting. I discovered that this is a well-established point of view – there is a lengthy Wikipedia page on the

Former clients of Small Press Distribution are still scrambling to find viable options to replace the services provided by SPD before the distributor abruptly shut down last Thursday. SPD provided distribution to about 400 publishers, including a large number of literary presses. The closing of the distributor sent shockwaves throughout the entire independent publishing community,

It’s now official: Klaus Makela will become the next music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, beginning in 2027-2028. He’ll conduct fourteen weeks of CSO concerts of which four will be on tour. He’ll concurrently become music director of Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw Orchestra. He’ll retain relationships with the Oslo Philharmonic and the Orchestre de Paris. He’ll

View image in fullscreen Britain’s universities are in freefall – and saving them will take more than funding Gaby Hinsliff Fundamental restructuring must happen, along with an honest debate about what – and who – higher education is really for Imagine a beach before the tsunami. Out at sea, the wave is gathering force, yet

View image in fullscreen UK nightlife venues squeezed out of city centres over costs and regulation Independent venues struggle to survive amid low footfall as disposable incomes fall Independent nightlife venues across the UK are struggling to survive amid a cocktail of high costs, low footfall and oppressive regulation that is squeezing them out of

From the outside, Center Theatre Group headquarters, a nondescript building across the street from the Music Center, is spectacularly unimpressive, the kind of place your mind wouldn’t even register as existing. But inside, the buzz of puzzle-solving energy might make you think you’ve stumbled onto the set of “Oppenheimer.” CTG Managing Director and Chief Executive

Kelly is a former librarian and a long-time blogger at STACKED. She’s the editor/author of (DON’T) CALL ME CRAZY: 33 VOICES START THE CONVERSATION ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH and the editor/author of HERE WE ARE: FEMINISM FOR THE REAL WORLD. Her next book, BODY TALK, will publish in Fall 2020. Follow her on Instagram @heykellyjensen. View

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, pen name Lewis Carroll, is best known as the Victorian-era author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Now, out of obscurity, comes Lewis Carroll’s Guide for Insomniacs, a charmingly odd little book. From reasoning problems to poetry writing to how to greet a ghost—all activities for what Carroll calls insomnia’s “wakeful hours”—it’s composed

Image by Thierry Milherou from Pixabay Enough experts in artificial intelligence saying that AI will “change everything,” suggest that it’s worth pondering what the “everything” means. The short answer is we don’t know. But we do know that technology has had profound impact on how the world works. And we know that the digital revolution

Harvey LIchtenstein (1929-2017) Here are a couple of responses to my latest blog, mulling Esa-Pekka Salonen’s resignation as music director of the San Francisco Symphony: –From a major European artists’ manager of long experience: “Over a period of decades, I have witnessed a progressive decline in the quality of leadership in the music business. Cultural institutions

Podcast listening continues to set new records as nearly 100 million American adults now say they listen to podcasts on a weekly basis. Edison Research’s annual Infinite Dial report shows just how widespread the habit is becoming, as a third of adults say they have listened to podcasts in the car – the ultimate audio

Hong Kong politicians first floated the idea to develop a world-class arts hub on a wedge of reclaimed land on Kowloon peninsula in 1998, shortly after the handover of the former British colony to China. Advocates called it a “golden opportunity” that would put Hong Kong on a par with other leading cities, silencing criticism

All eyes have been on Detroit in recent years, where Yuval Sharon’s much-profiled tenure at the rebranded Detroit Opera has turned into a case study for new models of opera’s cultural relevance in regional America. News outlets and commentators have been generous in covering his stewardship, highlighting Sharon’s audaciously modern programming and unorthodox concepts—not to

An actress who performed in the stage production of Mamma Mia! for over a decade has been dropped from a BBC project because they’ve decided to give the gig to artificial intelligence instead. Musical theater star Sara Poyzer publicly shared a screenshot of an email she received from an unnamed production company which read: “Sorry

As US museums continue to grapple with the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, several have drawn correlations between the years-long slump in visitors and cuts to their workforce. But as visitor numbers begin to stabilise, it remains unclear whether museums will reinstate those eliminated positions, an issue that has become more urgent as funds are

By Judy Carmack Bross Ballet dancer Misty Copeland, left, DDP Board Chair Erica Edwards, who is Executive Director of Giordano Dance Chicago, and Liza Yntema in March 2017. (Editor’s Note:  In January 2019 we profiled Liza Yntema when she launched the Dance Data Project (DDP), predicting that it could not only transform the ballet community