Category: today’s top story

“Tinterow had a distinguished 29-year tenure at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he had been chairman of the department of 19th-century, modern and contemporary art since 2008.” He succeeds the late Peter Marzio, who over 30 years “developed the MFAH into one of the nation’s most respected – and richest – museums.”

“Something happened on the way to easy passage and the flourish of the president’s signature: The Internet fought back. The groundswell started with open-Internet stalwarts like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Democracy & Technology. As they have before, the non-profits picked apart the bill’s perceived oversights and omissions. This time, though, their message–that the law would fundamentally damage the Internet’s culture of openness–resonated loudly outside the world of tech wonkdom.”

“In a rare attack by a playwright on a professional production of his own work, Stephen Adly Guirgis took to Facebook on Wednesday to assail the casting of two white actors as the Puerto Rican lead characters in the Hartford regional production of his play.”

“Seven people go on trial on Monday for the multi-million pound theft of a Monet, Sisley and two Breughels in Nice but their leader claims the FBI’s art crimes chief ‘ordered’ the heist.”

“[He] was so often called rude names – the wild man of British cinema, the apostle of excess, the oldest angry young man in the business – that he gave up denying it all quite early in his career. Indeed, he often seemed to court the very publicity that emphasised only the crudest assessment of his work.”

The composer-conductor’s Violin Concerto, commissioned for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Leila Josefowicz, “was completed and premiered in 2009 during Salonen’s emotional final weeks as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. It has since been played around the world.”

Have you played the flute, or the piano, on your iPad or iPhone? Here’s the guy who made that possible – and who wants to keep on spreading the music app love (er, for money).

“[She] and her husband of more than 40 years, the viola da gamba master and conductor Jordi Savall, introduced generations of listeners to music that spanned many centuries and lands from the Middle East to Latin America. In pursuit of their shared artistic vision, the duo founded three ensembles: Hespèrion XX (now called Hespèrion XXI), La Capella Reial de Catalunya and Le Concert des Nations.”

“Thomas Doyle, the Manhattan man who pleaded guilty in July to one count of wire fraud in connection with his deceitful purchase of the painting in 2010 … was sentenced on Monday to six years in prison – twice the sentence stipulated by guidelines relating to his plea bargain.”

“Lt. John Pike, the U.C. Davis campus police officer who pepper-sprayed passive student protesters, is popping up in some of the world’s most famous paintings” – Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe, Christina’s World, Guernica, even the Sistine Chapel ceiling – “as part of an Internet meme intended to shame him for his actions.”