San Francisco Symphony Names Elim Chan as Music Director

The San Francisco Symphony has appointed Elim Chan as its new music director, ending a period of uncertainty following the departure of Esa-Pekka Salonen. The announcement was made by KQED. Meanwhile, Laurence Vittes' report in Strings magazine argues that North American orchestras are undergoing a transformation in identity rather than merely facing budget cuts. In other arts news, an AI has passed the Turing test for the first time, as reported by Neuroscience News. A Commonwealth Short Story Prize winner is suspected of being AI-generated, according to The Guardian. AI-voiced pirated audiobooks are proliferating on YouTube faster than they can be removed, per The New York Times. The core issue is not AI capability but the lack of attribution. On a positive note, West End theatre ticket prices have fallen below 2019 levels when adjusted for inflation, as reported by WhatsOnStage. Additionally, neuroscientists are using electrodes and museum artifacts to study where beauty is processed in the brain, according to Smithsonian.