Arts & Culture

LONDON — Phillips' London Design auction on Wednesday, Nov. 4, produced strong prices for British studio ceramics, according to the house's posted results. An untitled vessel by Magdalene Odundo, estimated at £120,000 to £180,000, sold for £722,400. A Lucie Rie footed bowl estimated at £50,000 to £70,000 sold for £322,500, and a second Rie bowl made £58,050. A first-version 'Berceau' low table, estimated at £200,000 to £300,000, sold for £387,000. A Jean Royère pair of 'Persane' wall lights, estimated at £30,000 to £40,000, sold for £126,420. For comparison, an Odundo vessel at Phillips London in May 2022 sold for £302,400. Phillips has not described this week's result as a record. Buyers were not identified.

LONDON — The Bayeux Tapestry's loan to the British Museum is on Apollo magazine's Exhibition of the Year shortlist for 2026. Apollo says the winner will be announced on Nov. 19. The display opened on Sept. 10 and runs to July 11, 2027, in the Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery. The museum has said it is the first time the roughly 70-metre embroidery has been shown in the UK since it was made almost 1,000 years ago. The museum sold tickets in staged releases. Public sales opened on July 1, and the first block, covering the autumn dates, was reported sold out soon after. Attendance forecasts from earlier this year were as high as 7.5 million visitors. A separate dispute is in the news: a blind visitor has sued the museum over the lack of audio description.

LONDON — The 2026 Booker Prize winner will be announced on Monday, November 9, at Old Billingsgate in London. The prize is worth £50,000. The shortlist has six novels: The Disappearers by Marlon James, John of John by Douglas Stuart, The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout, The End of Everything by M. John Harrison, Black Bag by Luke Kennard and May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry. Perry is the only debut novelist. James won in 2015 and Stuart in 2020, and Strout was shortlisted in 2022. Mary Beard chairs a panel that also includes Raymond Antrobus, Jarvis Cocker, Rebecca Liu and Patricia Lockwood. The judges drew the list from 163 submitted books. Two independent-leaning imprints are represented: Serpent's Tail, part of Profile Books, and Granta. U.S. editions include Riverhead for James, Grove for Stuart and Random House for Strout.

NEW YORK — HarperCollins reported revenue of $582 million for the quarter ended September 30, up 9% from a year earlier, according to parent company News Corp, which reported on November 4. Publishers Weekly says operating profit measured as EBITDA rose 29%. News Corp noted that the prior-year quarter carried a $13 million write-off tied to the collapse of distributor Baker & Taylor. Digital sales rose 6%, helped by a 13% rise in audiobooks that the company credited to its Spotify partnership. Backlist made up 66% of consumer revenue. Ann Patchett's Whistler, Daniel Silva's Ransom and R.F. Kuang's Taipei Story were among the top sellers. News Corp executives said HarperCollins built up inventory ahead of the holidays because of supply-chain concerns. Publishers Lunch says last year's first quarter was unusually weak, so the comparison is easy.

LOS ANGELES — Regal and Cinemark, the second- and third-largest U.S. chains, will not book Netflix's 'The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth' on their Imax screens. The Brad Pitt film, written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by David Fincher, opens Nov. 25 for a two-week Imax run and reaches Netflix on Dec. 23. Regal said shortened windows weigh on how it allocates premium screens. Cinemark's chief executive, Sean Gamble, cited that same window on the company's earnings call, according to The Hollywood Reporter as relayed by CBR. He also pointed to the precedent it could set for future negotiations. AMC, with about 200 U.S. Imax screens against Regal's roughly 100 and Cinemark's roughly 20, will carry the film. IndieWire reports Imax let chains opt out because the deal came together late. The film will play about 550 screens worldwide, and the chains are favoring 'The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping.'

LOS ANGELES — Martin McDonagh's 'Wild Horse Nine' opens Friday through Searchlight Pictures. John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell play two CIA officers on Easter Island shortly before the 1973 Chilean coup. Critics have been broadly positive. Rotten Tomatoes showed 95% positive across 152 reviews, and Metacritic scored it 78 from 40 reviews. The Hollywood Reporter called it a late-career high for Malkovich, and Scotland's The Scotsman judged it McDonagh's best since 'In Bruges.' Variety was cooler on novelty, saying the film seldom surprises, though it praised the leads. Malkovich won best actor at Venice, where the film premiered. Searchlight held early-access screenings in 400 theaters on Oct. 30. The Palm Springs International Film Festival will give McDonagh its directing award on Jan. 7, 2027.

MANCHESTER — The BBC Philharmonic in Manchester announced Thursday that Joshua Weilerstein, 39, will become its chief conductor in September 2028. He succeeds Finland's John Storgårds, who is due to become conductor laureate when his tenure ends. The orchestra's director, Adam Szabo, called the appointment a dream signing and cited Weilerstein's gift for communicating with audiences and his advocacy for neglected works. Weilerstein is currently music director of the Orchestre National de Lille and chief conductor of Denmark's Aalborg Symphony. He leaves Aalborg at the end of the 2027-28 season. He has led the BBC Philharmonic at the Proms and in Manchester, and he hosts a conducting-themed podcast, Sticky Notes, that the orchestra says has more than nine million downloads. The BBC says the initial contract is for five years.

BOSTON — Igor Levit's new album 'Resistance' is among the first releases on No Silence Records, his own Berlin-based label. It couples Schoenberg's Ode to Napoleon with Liszt's piano transcription of Beethoven's Eroica Symphony. Reviewing it for The Arts Fuse, Jonathan Blumhofer calls the pairing predictable but forceful. He praises the defiant tone, the actress Dörte Lyssewski's handling of Byron's ironic verse, and the weight the Potsdam players bring under Antonello Manacorda. He ranks Schoenberg's moral conviction as the album's real star. Levit, he writes, is among the finest Beethoven pianists now playing. He singles out Levit's flexible phrasing, clear voicing, and an exhilarating Scherzo in the Eroica. Wider critical reaction is not yet in.

Two keyboard releases mark the next week. Brilliant Classics issues the third and final volume of Liszt's music for two pianos today, November 6. The Lisztian Leslie Howard masterminded the series, and Mattia Ometto joins him. The two-CD set includes several first recordings. A week later, on November 13, Deutsche Grammophon releases Continuum II by Víkingur Ólafsson. It continues his Bach project with the composer's keyboard works, chorales and new personal transcriptions, recorded at his home studio in Iceland. Critical reaction to both is still to come. The listings also show Thomas Adès's first Hallé album as principal guest conductor, which includes Kurtág and Tippett. It is dated November 6.