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Newsweek
27-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Newsweek
MrBeast Makes Astronomer Joke After Gwyneth Paltrow Video
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. MrBeast, who was recently named the top content creator in the world by Forbes, has reacted to one of the year's most viral stories, the Astronomer Coldplay "kiss-cam scandal." In a post on X, formerly Twitter, MrBeast responded to the company's recent marketing video, which featured Gwyneth Paltrow. Newsweek has reached out to a representative for MrBeast via email for comment. Why It Matters MrBeast's social media post comes after a split-second clip of Astronomer CEO Andy Byron and his colleague Kristin Cabot was shared on social media and promptly broke the internet. The video, first shared by instaagraace on TikTok, has been viewed over 128 million times as of time of writing. Left, MrBeast speaks onstage during YouTube Brandcast 2025 at David Geffen Hall in New York City on May 14, 2025. Right, Gwyneth Paltrow attends the 2025 Breakthrough Prize Ceremony at Barker Hangar in Santa Monica,... Left, MrBeast speaks onstage during YouTube Brandcast 2025 at David Geffen Hall in New York City on May 14, 2025. Right, Gwyneth Paltrow attends the 2025 Breakthrough Prize Ceremony at Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California, on April 5, 2025. More Taylor Hill/FilmMagic/for YouTube In the clip, the jumbotron lands on the pair and they promptly sprang apart. Coldplay's lead singer Chris Martin, says: "Either they're having an affair or they're just really shy." The pair were later identified as Byron, CEO of the tech firm Astronomer, and Cabot, the company's head of Human Resources. Both have now resigned. What To Know On July 26, Astronomer shared a light-hearted marketing video which capitalizes on the attention that has been brought to the company since the now infamous Coldplay canoodling. The video features Paltrow, Martin's Oscar-winning ex-wife, as a "very temporary spokesperson." MrBeast, real name Jimmy Donaldson, responded to this on X. In a post that has been viewed over 230,000 times, he wrote, "Can I be CEO." Astronomer's board of directors have announced that they will start a formal search for their new chief executive. Company co-founder Pete DeJoy has taken over as interim CEO. He said on Monday that Astronomer has faced an "unusual and surreal" amount of attention in recent days. Astronomer is a New York-based company that helps companies develop, grow, and analyze products using artificial intelligence. MrBeast, whose YouTube channel boasts over 416 million subscribers, is the owner of multiple companies, including Feastables and MrBeast Burger. He has previously shared posts on social media expressing interest in buying the social media platform X from Elon Musk. In June, as part of their list of Top Content Creators, Forbes reported that MrBeast had earnings of $85 million. Back in 2022, Forbes reported the 27-year-old could become the world's "first YouTuber billionaire," reporting at the time that he had a net worth of $500 million. What People Are Saying An Astronomer spokesperson previously told Newsweek in a statement: "Astronomer is committed to the values and culture that have guided us since our founding. Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently, that standard was not met." What's Next The search for Astronomer's new CEO is ongoing.
Forbes
14-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Bruce Springsteen's New Album Debuts Twice On The Same Charts
Bruce Springsteen scores multiple Billboard wins with Tracks II and Lost and Found, as both reach ... More the Top Album Sales and Americana/Folk Albums charts together. NEW YORK, NEW YORK - NOVEMBER 06: Bruce Springsteen performs onstage during the 17th Annual Stand Up For Heroes Benefit presented by Bob Woodruff Foundation and NY Comedy Festival at David Geffen Hall on November 06, 2023 in New York City. (Photo byfor Bob Woodruff Foundation) Bruce Springsteen's new box set Tracks II: The Lost Albums is so massive, it had to be released in several different variations. The project includes seven full-length albums that Springsteen recorded at various times throughout his career, but chose not to release for one reason or another. Given the volume of music, the release comes with a hefty price tag, but Springsteen wanted to ensure fans of all kinds could afford it. At the same time Tracks II dropped, the rocker also shared Lost and Found: Selections from the Lost Albums, a one-disc offering featuring just a handful of Springsteen's new cuts at a budget price. Amazingly, both of those brand new albums become charting wins in the U.S., even appearing near one another on some of the same tallies. Tracks II and Lost and Found Debut Together Both Tracks II and Lost and Found debut on the Top Album Sales and Top Americana/Folk Albums charts. Tracks II is the bigger winner between the two, opening at No. 7 on the rankings. Lost and Found launches at No. 16 on the Top Album Sales ranking and at No. 22 on Billboard's tally that focuses solely on Americana and folk music. A Box Set Worth Hundreds of Dollars Despite its price tag — Amazon is selling Tracks II for $260 on CD and more than $300 on vinyl — it emerges as the top performer between the two. Tracks II sold 10,400 copies in its first tracking period, according to Luminate. Lost and Found, meanwhile, sold 5,900 copies — a little more than half as many as its larger companion. Bruce Springsteen's New Bestseller Lost and Found can only be located on the two rankings mentioned, while Tracks II opens on half a dozen lists. The box set appears lowest on the Billboard 200, coming in at No. 67. It also launches inside the top 20 on the Top Rock Albums, Vinyl Albums, and Top Rock & Alternative Albums charts, landing at Nos. 13, 14, and 15, respectively. Throughout the years, Springsteen has only sent five titles to the Americana/Folk Albums chart. 40% of all of those projects debuted this frame, as he earns his first new arrival in more than half a decade.
New York Times
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Review: Dudamel Unveils a Love Letter to the Philharmonic
'Is there anything like that first strike of the bow?' Kate Soper asks at the start of her new piece for the New York Philharmonic. 'A hundred players moving as one! All that splendor, all that might!' She is describing the wonders of an orchestra, and you don't have to take her word for it. In Soper's sweet, clever 'Orpheus Orchestra Opus Onus,' which had its premiere at David Geffen Hall on Thursday under Gustavo Dudamel's baton, the ensemble illustrates her words as she says them, 'Peter and the Wolf' style. 'The highs got higher, the lows got lower,' she says, explaining the development of instruments, and we hear ethereal pitches, then loud rumbles. 'Wood was lacquered,' she goes on, to delight in the oboe and clarinet. 'Metal bent' elicits a horn fanfare and trombone slide. Soper soon proclaims, with disarming plainness, 'That's right everyone: I'm Orpheus!' In this half-hour monodrama for a mostly speaking, sometimes singing soprano, she offers a tender retelling of the legend of the great musician of Greek mythology. Her story blends into a poetic reflection on music's meaning, what it can do (offer glimpses of the sublime) and what it can't (most anything else). Soper does all this in quirkily postmodern style. Her eclectic, quick-shifting sounds, including touches of memorably ancient-feeling bass flute, are woven into a quilt of quotations from famous settings of the Orpheus myth by Monteverdi and Gluck, as well as lesser-heard ones by Sartorio, Landi, Campra and others. There are also flashes of Bach, Vivaldi, Beethoven, Mozart and Grieg in the mix, and the text, mostly original, interpolates passages from Rilke's 'Sonnets to Orpheus.' Modern music lovers may be reminded of Luciano Berio's more chaotic collage 'Sinfonia.' For fans of Soper, especially in her composer-performer mode, 'Orpheus Orchestra Opus Onus' will recall brainy, winsome works like 'Ipsa Dixit' (2016), which she began by posing the spoken question, 'What is art?' and attempted to answer through snippets of writers like Aristotle, Lydia Davis and Freud. Creating her first big orchestral piece, Soper has clearly understood she's writing for a broader audience; 'Orpheus Orchestra Opus Onus' is more immediately accessible than the fascinating but abstruse 'Ipsa Dixit.' Philharmonic programs don't tend to feature a lot of humor — certainly not of Soper's winking mash-up variety — and her voice is a whimsical change of pace as the season draws to an end. Dudamel, who becomes the Philharmonic's music director designate later this year before fully taking the reins in fall 2026, preceded the orchestra's latest commission with its first: Stravinsky's Symphony in Three Movements, conducted by its composer at its 1946 premiere. It's better known at Lincoln Center these days as the score for one of George Balanchine's classic leotard works, regularly danced by New York City Ballet. Played by the Philharmonic on Thursday with confident panache, it, like the Soper piece, offered a love letter to the orchestra's range, from burly power to graceful delicacy: 'All that splendor, all that might!' Too bad those qualities were missing from the program's closer, Philip Glass's dreary 11th Symphony (2017). Glass's listlessly chugging symphonies are nowhere near his greatest achievements, but the 40-minute 11th is finding its way to major orchestras; Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony did it a few years ago. A grumbling beginning yields to characteristically swirling Glassian figurations in the strings — well played by the Philharmonic, the arpeggios precise yet warm. After mild lyricism in the second movement, the third unleashes a battery of percussion. In Glass's 1984 opera 'Akhnaten,' that kind of raucous drumming is an arresting evocation of antiquity. Here, it's busy bombast, without real thrill or power.
New York Times
12-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
After Nearly 125 Years, a Lost Jewel by Ravel Gets Its Premiere
The conductor Gustavo Dudamel has premiered dozens of pieces in his career. But the score that he was giddily studying on a recent afternoon at Lincoln Center was different: a nearly 125-year-old piece by the French composer Maurice Ravel that had only recently surfaced in a Paris library. 'Imagine more than 100 years later discovering a small, beautiful jewel,' Dudamel, the incoming music and artistic director of the New York Philharmonic, said in an interview at David Geffen Hall. 'It's precious.' On Thursday, Dudamel and the Philharmonic will give the world premiere of the five-minute piece as part of a program celebrating the 150th birthday of Ravel, one of the leading composers of the 20th century, whose works include 'Boléro,' 'Le Tombeau de Couperin' and 'La Valse.' The newly found piece, 'Sémiramis: Prélude et Danse,' was written sometime between 1900 and 1902, when Ravel was in his late 20s and sparring with administrators at the Paris Conservatory, where he studied piano and composition. The work, from an unfinished cantata about the Babylonian queen Semiramis, reveals a young musician still honing his voice and looking to others, like the Russian composer Rimsky-Korsakov, for inspiration. 'Sémiramis' lacks some of the lush textures and rich harmonies for which Ravel would become known — he was a master of blending French impressionism, Spanish melodies, baroque, jazz and other music — though there are hints of his unconventional style. The manuscript, more than 40 pages long, includes an aria for tenor and orchestra that the Philharmonic will not perform; the Orchestre de Paris will premiere that section, alongside the prelude and dance, in December under the baton of Alain Altinoglu. 'Sémiramis' is a coup for the New York Philharmonic, which is gearing up for the start of Dudamel's tenure in fall 2026. It is rare to uncover unpublished works by major composers, and Ravel, who died in 1937 at 62, wrote only about 80 pieces in his life, fewer than many of his peers. Dudamel said the Philharmonic would do its best to capture Ravel's intentions. The manuscript lacks a tempo marking at the start, and there appear to be some missing notes, including in the harp line. 'It's more pressure,' Dudamel said. 'The only thing I can hope for is that he will send a message to me secretly through my dreams.' The discovery has energized the Philharmonic's players, who with no recordings or scholarly notes to turn to, have consulted each other in recent days about dynamics and phrasing. 'It's a pretty vulnerable moment for Ravel,' said Julian Gonzalez, the associate principal bassoon. 'He's not going to be at the rehearsals. He can't change anything. It will be up to us to get it right.' 'Sémiramis' had been sitting in the archives of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France since 2000, when the library acquired it in an auction of Ravel memorabilia. But the manuscript was brought to light only recently, when researchers were looking for new works that could be performed to mark Ravel's 150th birthday. François Dru, the editorial director of the Ravel Edition publishing house, came across an image of the score while searching the library's digital archives several years ago. He knew the name of the piece because it appeared in a catalog of Ravel's works; the manuscript had been marked as 'not traced.' 'It was very easy to find,' Dru said. 'It wasn't some of kind of adventure or mystery like Indiana Jones excavating something from the ground. I'm a bit amazed that nobody spotted it.' Dru mentioned the score to Gabryel Smith, the director of the New York Philharmonic's archives, when the two ran into each other at an exhibition about the Ballets Russes at the Morgan Library & Museum last year. But before bringing it to Dudamel, the Philharmonic wanted to be sure 'Sémiramis' was authentic — the manuscript was unsigned and there were no references to public performances. It was possible, although unlikely, that Ravel had copied somebody else's work as an academic exercise. Verification came in the form of a diary from the Spanish pianist Ricardo Viñes, a close friend and collaborator of Ravel's. In the diary, Viñes meticulously documented events at the Paris Conservatory and interactions with revered figures like the French flutist Paul Taffanel and the composer Gabriel Fauré, Ravel's composition teacher and mentor. Viñes wrote about the first read-through of the piece, which took place on April 7, 1902, during an orchestra class at the conservatory: The 'Sémiramis' manuscript has certain Ravel hallmarks. The neat musical notation matches his penmanship, as does the handwriting, down to the 'a' in 'Danse,' which he wrote like the first letter of the Greek alphabet. And the musical style, heavily influenced by Russian masters, is consistent with some of the composer's other early works, including his 'Shéhérazade' pieces inspired by 'The Arabian Nights.' By the early 1900s, Ravel was already making his name as a composer, producing the beloved piano work 'Pavane Pour une Infante Défunte' (1899) and other classics. Just two days before the 'Sémiramis' reading at the conservatory, Viñes had given the premiere of 'Jeux d'eau,' another cherished piano piece. But despite his success, Ravel was an outsider at the conservatory, frequently clashing with its more traditionally minded professors. He repeatedly lost out on prizes, which were essential for survival at the conservatory. He was dismissed from the school several times for his lack of awards, only to return as an auditor in Fauré's class. Around this time, he and his friends, including Viñes, formed Les Apaches, a society of writers, artists and musicians. They met weekly, sharing art and ideas, and greeting each other by whistling the opening melody from Alexander Borodin's Symphony No. 2. Ravel, who was born in France in 1875 to a Spanish mother and a Swiss father, might have written 'Sémiramis' with the hope that it would be his prizewinning piece: The orchestration and style is notably conservative. But he appears to have abandoned the idea of a sweeping work; he left behind only the prelude, dance and aria. Arbie Orenstein, a leading Ravel scholar, first came across a mention of 'Sémiramis' in the 1970s, when he conducted research and interviews for his seminal biography, 'Ravel: Man and Musician' (1975), He had found manuscripts of other unpublished Ravel works — including six that premiered for the composer's centenary in 1975 — but had been unable to locate 'Sémiramis.' Orenstein said the work showed the composer's early mastery of orchestration. 'He had already composed masterpieces, but he is still finding his way as a student,' he said. 'On his way, he's already there, in a sense.' In the days before the premiere of 'Sémiramis,' Dudamel and the Philharmonic's players have been poring over the score, looking for connections to other Ravel works and for hints on questions of tone and timbre. Dudamel said he could hear early evidence of Ravel's genius and echoes of later works like the 'Ma Mère l'Oye' ('Mother Goose') suite. 'Ravel creates perfumes of colors,' he said. 'He is a colorist. He was creating such a beautiful and deep sensuality in music. I don't think other composers have that touch.' Dudamel said that while premiering 'Sémiramis' was daunting, it was also an opportunity to shape Ravel's music in an unexpectedly intimate way. 'The piece is still a mystery,' he said. 'It is like an empty book for the imagination.'
