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The Arts Vibrancy Index report is an indispensable resource for anyone seeking to better understand how the arts and culture sector contributes to a community’s economy and public life. Now in its seventh iteration, the report has helped organizations evaluate where to relocate or focus their operations; provided clarity for funders on how and where to invest; and made it easier than ever for communities to learn how to cultivate arts vibrancy in their area.

Ghosts.  Dancing skeletons.  A giant toothy snake from Hell, like Saturday Night Live’s land shark on steroids. “The Handbook for the Recently Deceased.”  When the title character mirthfully tells the audience that this is a play about death, he’s not kidding.  Fortunately, it’s all in good fun, and there is plenty of it in this delightfully camp musical adaptation of the highly successful 1988 comedy-horror film.

The Guggenheim Museum releases its schedule of exhibitions for 2023.

 Julia Bullock and the American Modern Opera Project brought a new version of John Adams’ and Peter Sellars' El Nino to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, known for its support of the arts and blessing of all animals. This will become a traditional performance.

It comes as a surprise to noone who attends Met Operas that the House is in trouble. Only Peter Gelb, who at first said that people were asleep after Covid, seems to find the Met Opera's failure to sell tickets news. His response is also odd. The operas he proposes to produce to cure are chamber operas unsuited to an opera house too large for our times.

Around Six years ago, I signed up for the National Geographic Family History DNA Test.  For around $125, I received a Cheek Swab Kit and some paperwork.  I was instructed to reveal nothing more than my Name and Age.  A few weeks later, I received a box which included a Printed Brill Family History based solely on the DNA I presented.  The National Geographic Report let me know that I am Jewish and that my Father’s Family started in the Middle East and traveled to Sicily around a thousand years ago. 

The works in On the Town celebrate city life and community, illuminating a Boston area of the past through the vision of one of its more unique residents. Arnold Trachtman’s paintings tell stories and reveal an artist as deeply invested in his neighborhood as it was in him.  

The Clark Art Institute hosts three free events as part of I/O Fest, the Williams College Department of Music’s annual immersion in the music of today. Students in the music program take audiences on a tour of new sounds and adventurous music during a concert for families on January 15.

He’s been making jazz, and nurturing young jazz artists, for more than 50 years, and it’s about time we paid tribute to Mike Schiffer. At the age of 93, he is still playing local gigs. But this time, on Sunday afternoon, Jan. 29 (4pm), he’ll be in the audience with the rest of us lucky jazz followers.

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is pleased to announce the first round of recommended awards for fiscal year 2023, with more than $34 million in funding to support the arts nationwide. This is the first of the NEA’s two major grant announcements each fiscal year and includes grants to organizations through the NEA’s Grants for Arts Projects, Challenge America, and Research Awards categories.

In short order, playwright Lynne Kaufman offers enticing insights into two contrasting, important modern poets, and the simple production succeeds through fine acting. This compact but impactful taste of familiarity fully satisfies on its own, while many attendees will want to learn even more about these fragile artists and their robust literary works.

It has taken months for Martin Mugar to get a fix on the remarkable Philip Guston exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. The work is now on the road. Mugar attempts to unpack the complex phases of the work from initial Social Realism to Abstract Expressionism to a late phase entailing controversial cartoonish images of the Ku Klux Klan. Initially the late work cast him as a pariah in the art world. During which he taught at Boston University and was embraced by like minded professors and students.

Gloucester 400th Plus is an occasion for research and reflection on all aspects of the history and culture of Cape Ann. in 2022 the Cape Ann Museum hosted a range of panel discussions and lectures. Here is the full program with links to their videos. It is significant that the museum has preserved and made available such a valuable resource.

All the big opera companies have something to learn from the Prototype Festival, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary.

While manager of the Boston Tea Party Steve Nelson booked, first the Yardbirds with Jimmy Page, then later the Jeff Beck band for four nights. Beck was touring with Rod Stewart, Ron Wood and Mick Waller. (Editor: I saw that lineup at the Newport Jazz Festival.) On the cusp of superstardom Beck broke up the band. Rod went solo and Ron eventually joined the Rolling Stones.

In a fast-moving 60 minutes, mime comic Ennio provides cleverly curated cartoon characterizations of celebrities and lip syncs to songs, mostly recorded by the people portrayed. The music is the songbook of our lives (if you’re middle aged or older!), including rock-and-roll, pop of various sorts, and rap.

Victoria Bond will conduct at the UN on January 27. The event can be live streamed. She will then travel to Stockton, California for a tribute to Ray Charles .

Thanks to the popularity of the instantly recognizable Great Wave—cited everywhere from book covers and Lego sets to anime and emoji—Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) has become one of the most famous and influential artists in the world. This major exhibition organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), takes a new approach to the work of the versatile master.

Who does not remember Stanley Kubrick's 1971 film 'A Clockwork Orange' based on the novel by Anthony Burgess from 1962!? It was one of the most chilling cinematic affairs then, and it remains today on stage. Here, the photographs speak a million words....

A fine cast delivers with lesser material in Broadway in Lauderhill's opening season production of "The Full Monty." The Full Monty is charming and amusing in places, but a musical mess in others. The production runs through Jan. 29 at the Lauderhill Performing Arts Center.

The Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA)  presents Across Shared Waters: Contemporary Artists in Dialogue with Tibetan Art from the Jack Shear Collection, on view from Feb. 17 through July 16, 2023.

A strong equity national touring production of "Turner: The Tina Turner Musical" is playing in Ft. Lauderdale through Jan. 29. This jukebox musical focuses on the life of a legendary performer. Triple threat performers shine in the production.

This major exhibition is the first dedicated to Hopper’s formative development on Cape Ann, marking the centennial of the pivotal summer of 1923 when Edward Hopper and his future wife, Josephine “Jo” Nivison, visited Gloucester. Edward Hopper & Cape Ann opens on Hopper’s birthday, July 22, 2023, and runs through October 16, 2023, and is presented in collaboration with the Whitney Museum of American Art, the major repository of the Hoppers’ work.

All of us have had that restaurant experience in which we thought the food would never come. In this case, the cause is not a lost order or long prep time or overtaxed restaurant staff. It is willful delay by the server from hell.

The 90th birthday of composer Pauline Oliveros was celebrated on Saturday at the newly reconfigured Zankel Hall in Carnegie Hall.  The steeply raked seating on two sides of the hall, leading to a central stage area embedded in seats on all four sides, felt like an Oliveros’ creation.  We are brought to the hall to listen, deeply.