Change and new beginnings mark the stories of the year in arts and culture

A congressman is trading one theater for another.

An iconic maestro hit a milestone with her orchestra and stacked up yet another Grammy nomination; Niagara Falls tourism saw what should be the first of multiple improvements, and while those things and more were happening, the people you might see chatting about this news on television significantly changed.

From leadership changes (and there were many) to places where you can get a locally made drink, Western New York’s cultural landscape was in constant motion in 2023.

Buffalo’s iconic art museum was renovated and renamed — and in the process, Western New York’s position in the global art community was reinvigorated.

After nearly three years of renovations, the Buffalo AKG Art Museum opened in June. The former Albright-Knox Art Gallery underwent a $195 million renovation and expansion that began in early 2020. The renewed museum includes 13 galleries that feature approximately 430 works, or three times the number on display in the former gallery.

The museum was designed by Shohei Shigematsu of the international architecture firm OMA and includes a new three-story, glass-and-marble building named for the billionaire Jeffrey M. Gundlach, an Amherst native whose $65 million contribution paid for one-third of the project.

After 19 years splitting time between Buffalo and Washington, D.C., Rep. Brian Higgins announced in November that he would be retiring from Congress in February to become president and CEO of Shea’s Performing Arts Center.

“Theater has been an essential art form of democracy,” said Higgins, making a reference to Athens in the sixth century B.C.

But to explain why he’s leaving Congress in the middle of his 10th term, the South Buffalo Democrat made a current-day reference to theatrics encumbering democracy.

“There is a lot of theater nowadays in Congress,” Higgins…