“The Humans,” And “Shuffle Along” Win New York Drama Critics Circle Awards

Voted on by a group of New York-based theater critics, the awards serve as quantifiable validation from the critical community as both productions head into the Tony Awards. (The winners’ list this year doesn’t represent a dis on the Broadway juggernaut “Hamilton”; that show won the NYDCC trophy last year, in its Off Broadway incarnation.)

The $200,000 Piano That Pianists Think Is Worth It

“Mr Fazioli’s factory — more accurately, a hall filled with craftsmen and their tools—runs at full capacity, turning out 140 grand pianos a year. Because they are made to order, customers have to wait between four and eight months for delivery of the instruments, for which they are prepared to pay as much as $200,000. So large is the demand that Mr Fazioli is increasing the size of the factory to make 160-170 pianos a year.”

The Bernie Sanders Of American Classical Music

“At 78, flinty and opinionated yet warm, … he has, for decades, been making thought-provoking, heart-wrenching music about issues that dominate the headlines today: the perils of incarceration, the tension between the government and the governed, the struggle for gay rights, the decimation of the industrial working class.”