Editor's Digest

“10 Biggest Art Disasters of 2013”: In 2013, contemporary culture lost a number of notable performers and artists, including pianist Van Cliburn, film critic Roger Ebert, writer Doris Lessing, and singer-songwriter Lou Reed. These individual deaths pale alongside the wanton destruction of cultural artifacts, from the destruction of an 11th-century minaret in Syria and an ancient Mayan Temple leveled in Belize to the wanton dispersal of Native American Katsinam sold at auction in Paris.

(Hrag Vartanian, Hyperallergic, December 31, 2013.)

“The Audience Is the Most Important Instrument”: For too long, artists have sneered at the desire (no less the duty) for a work to connect with an audience. But the most successful composers see the audience's aesthetic experience as the most difficult instrument to master when creating a new work.

(Dan Visconti, New Music Box, January 2, 2014.)

photo: Examples of the sacred Native American works known as Katsinam.