February
This 4000-year-old story could be fresh off the front page
Sanskrit epic Mahabharata showing at Perth Festival has an urgent message for all of us – particularly for some in the WA capital.
January
Solo guitar stars band together to form ambitious Australian quartet
Audiences are in for something extraordinary, promises the Sydney Opera House’s former CEO, who jumped at the chance to chair the new group’s board.
November 2024
How this music tech start-up attracted Sony as anchor investor
An online portal of ready-made music lessons that any primary school teacher can use has won a major investor.
October 2024
One Direction singer Liam Payne dead after falling from hotel balcony
Harry Styles’ former bandmate died after falling from the third floor of a hotel in Buenos Aires, according to Argentine media.
September 2024
‘We’re not Logos by the Sea’: How to make arts sponsorships work
Transfield’s exit from Sydney Biennale in 2014 started a torturous recent history for corporate support, but there are still successful exceptions.
July 2024
‘Paris is the perfect place for older women’
Sarah Wilson is living her dream life in a city she says treasures lively arguments and genuine curiosity over wealth and property. This is how she spends her weekends.
June 2024
The unlikely father and daughter paying for King Lear
Barrister Katherine Brazenor has a taste for the darkly comic. No wonder she’s enlisted her father as a co-patron of the Bard’s play on a fatally dysfunctional family.
December 2023
How the Y2K bug reset Opera House CEO Louise Herron’s career
When the anticipated global computing meltdown did not happen on January 1, 2000, the former lawyer couldn’t help thinking her career was “really stupid”
November 2023
Architect Nic Brunsdon wants us to look at air with his NGV exhibit
Like fish in water, humans rarely stop to think about the basic substance that keeps them alive. Perth-based Brunsdon wants to challenge that.
September 2023
Desert deluge failed to dampen my Burning Man spirit
AFR correspondent Michael Smith finally made it to his first Burning Man festival, only to see a freak storm transform the desert site and strand thousands.
April 2023
‘It’s been like a dream’: Dancer returns to the stage after two decades
Sarah Peace is among Australian Ballet stars past and present dancing together in the world premiere of its 60th-anniversary production ‘Paragon’.
March 2023
On the discovery trail of Berlin’s roaring twenties
Traces of the Weimar era linger for those who know where to look, because this museum isn’t in the place you’d expect.
Up close and personal with the very first life that moved on Earth
The Australian technology studio Sandpit is breathing life into everything from 500-million-year-old fossils to an Adelaide festival show and Shakespeare’s home.
January 2023
How a $100 gift to a girl in Mildura led to international opera fame
Victorian-born soprano Siobhan Stagg is in huge demand from opera companies and orchestras worldwide. But her career could just as easily never happened.
November 2022
The other reason Amazon is bringing Neighbours back
Federal Arts Minister Tony Bourke told a crowd of writers he has met with the streaming giants to tell them “Australian content quotas, including for scripted dramas, are coming to this country”.
October 2022
Damien Hirst sets fire to hundreds of artworks
The British artist placed hundreds of works into a fireplace at a gallery in London after collectors opted to purchase the crypto version instead of physical copies.
September 2022
Once more around the floor for Mao’s Last Dancer
At the unlikely age of 61, Li Cunxin is preparing to don the slippers once again at Queensland Ballet.
August 2022
From school drop-out to fashion’s top glamour gig. How did she do it?
Photographer Emma Summerton thought fashion was something you saw in the Myer catalogue. Now she’s the first Aussie to shoot the prestigious Pirelli calendar.
July 2022
Meet the cellist breaking classical music’s barriers
Sheku Kanneh-Mason and his six virtuoso siblings have given a new face and new energy to a traditional form.
January 2022
AI is restoring priceless Picassos – but not everyone is happy
Using new technology, lost artworks are being recreated all over the world. But is it a case of reclaiming what was lost, or rewriting history?