The number of applicants to the 18 th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition topped 500 for the first time in the almost 100-year history of the event. The number has been growing steadily over the last decade alone, from 353 in 2010. … » Read

As if to pay amends for its history as America’s largest slave-trading port, the City of Charleston will be the site of the world premiere of Omar , a new opera based on the 1831 autobiography of Omar Ibn Said, an enslaved Muslim African … » Read

Madani Younis’s recent appointment as chief executive producer at the Shed, and resignation from an apparently lesser post at London's Southbank Center, goes to the heart of the U.K.’s failure to achieve real diversity in the arts, … » Read

Beijing’s municipal government has announced an initiative to grow its music and creative industries into a $17.2b economic juggernaut by 2025. Released on Dec. 31, the plan calls for promoting the growth of the city’s digital music … » Read

Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts has appointed an interim director in the wake of Sarah Curran’s departure in November. She is Jennifer Calienes, a Massachusetts-based arts consultant whose recent clients include Urban Bush … » Read

Dutch violinist and pedagogue Jaap Schröder died on Tuesday December 31 at the age of 94. Together with Gustav Leonardt, Frans Brüggen, and Anner Bÿlsma, he founded the Netherlands Quartet in 1960. In 1975 he formed the Quartetto … » Read

CAST (Community Arts Stabilization Trust), a San Francisco nonprofit that works to find affordable space for arts groups in the city, has announced plans to create a four-story community arts hub in the vacant 1907 Dempster Printing Building. … » Read

With the launch of “Symphony in the City,” the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) has announced plans for four free concerts in distinctive venues around the city. As part of the BSO’s Beethoven 2020 project celebrating the … » Read

St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, burial place of J.S. Bach, was vandalized on New Year’s Eve when 25 panes of glass were smashed by rocks. Two stained-glass panels and more than 20 Art Nouveau panes were destroyed, according to Deutsche … » Read

Maxim Lando may be only 17, but thanks to a newsworthy stint deputizing for the injured left hand of his mentor Lang Lang, he’s already had a taste of fame and fortune. Add to that a first prize at the 2018 Young Concert Artists (YCA) … » Read