On June 27 the board of the San Francisco Opera elected Barbara A. Wolfe to succeed John Gunn as its new chair, effective as of August. Gunn, who is to become chair emeritus, has held the position since 2008 and steps down at the end of the … » Read

Paul Sperry, a tenor whose devotion to songs by living American composers as well as some of the most challenging by late-20th-century Europeans won praise here and abroad, died in New York on June 13. He was 90. A graduate of Harvard and Harvard … » Read

LONDON—It’s a mark of a fine actor when you see him multiple times and only realize it’s the same person when you check his program biography. In 2021 at Grange Park’s The Life and Death of Alexander Litvinenko I admired … » Read

The Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO) has named Samuel Hollister as its next assistant conductor, succeeding  Stephanie Childress who exited the job in 2023 and has moved on to some high-profile engagements. Hollister, chosen after … » Read

A French court ruled last Friday that Maurice Ravel was the composer of the ubiquitous Bolero. That may seem obvious, but earlier this year the heirs of Russian of stage designer Alexandre Benois, who worked on the original performance of the … » Read

Sarah Cole, an expert in literary modernism, has been promoted from interim to dean of Columbia University’s School of the Arts, encompassing the departments of film, theater, visual and sound Arts, and writing. She has been serving as … » Read

Esa-Pekka Salonen’s decision to not renew his contract as music director of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) has shocked the city’s cultural cognoscenti and called into question the city’s self-image. The Finn was unsparing when … » Read

Michelle Miller Burns, president and CEO of the Minnesota Orchestra, is to take the same position with the Dallas Symphony as of September 23. She succeeds Kim Noltemy, who was  announced in May as the new president and CEO of the Los … » Read

Over 300 miles north of Uganda’s capital city of Kampala, the architectural firm of Hassell and Localworks has collaborated with To.org , a collective of materials scientists, visual artists, storytellers, architects, and other visionary … » Read

The city of Calgary, population approximately 1.7 million, appears on the surface to take seriously the notion that the arts drive economic growth. On Wednesday, Arts Commons, a 560,000-square-foot area in downtown encompassing six gallery … » Read