The top-seeded Boston Celtics and Oklahoma City Thunder have rolled to convincing victories in their opening NBA playoff series.

Eastern Conference top seeds Boston laid down a marker with a 120-95 rout of the fourth-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers at the TD Garden on Tuesday.

Oklahoma City, meanwhile, were made to work harder by Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks before finally pulling clear to seal a 117-95 victory in their Western Conference semifinal series opener.

In Boston, Jaylen Brown scored 32 points while Derrick White added 25, including seven three-pointers, in an emphatic win for the Celtics, who are chasing a record 18th NBA championship.

Boston were in complete control for most of the game, holding a double-digit lead through the second half to close out an emphatic win at the TD Garden.

Boston star Jayson Tatum added 18 points but had an off-night shooting-wise, making just 7-of-19 from the field.

Donovan Mitchell led the scoring for Cleveland with 33 points, with Evan Mobley adding 17 and Darius Garland 14.

Brown said the Celtics’ defence had laid the foundation for the win.

“It starts with defence, we wanted to set the tone on defence and we kept them under 100 (points),” Brown told TNT television.

“But we feel like we’ve got an answer for everything so we just play the game the right way, and see what they want to take away and then we play after that.”

Game two in the series takes place in Boston on Thursday.

🏆 TUESDAY’S FINAL SCORES 🏆

Jaylen Brown comes out in attack mode, scoring 15 in the 1st, on way to 32 for the game as the @celtics take Game 1!

White: 25 PTS, 7 3PM, 5 AST
Tatum: 18 PTS, 11 REB, 5 AST
Mitchell: 33 PTS, 4 3PM, 6 REB, 5 AST

Game 2: Thursday, 7:00pm/et on ESPN pic.twitter.com/3cfhBdmcWi

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— NBA (@NBA) May 8, 2024

Thunder edge Doncic’s Mavericks

In Oklahoma City (OKC), the Thunder and the Mavericks fought a nip-and-tuck duel before the top seeds pulled away decisively in the fourth quarter.

Trailing by nine points at half-time, Dallas rallied in the third quarter to get within one point at 66-65.

But the youthful Thunder lineup began to find their range, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander adding 10 points in the third quarter to help OKC build a 10-point cushion heading into the fourth quarter.

Oklahoma City’s barrage of scoring continued in the fourth with Jalen Williams adding 10 points as the Thunder outscored their visitors 28-16 to seal victory by a 22-point margin.

Gilgeous-Alexander led the OKC scoring, finishing with 29 points, nine rebounds and nine assists while Chet Holmgren added 19 points and Williams 18.

Kyrie Irving led Dallas with 20 points while Luka Doncic, struggling with a sore knee, finished with 19 after shooting six-of-19 from the field.

Oklahoma City, who have an average age of just over 23, are the youngest team to win a second-round playoff game and were the youngest team to win a postseason series after sweeping the New Orleans Pelicans in the first round.

“We don’t worry about all the statistics and the stats, and how young we are,” Gilgeous-Alexander said after the win. “We just want to win basketball games at a high level and that’s what we focus on.

“We try to get that done every night and tonight we did so.”

Doncic said the Mavericks would need to improve dramatically for Game Two taking place in Oklahoma City on Thursday.

The Slovenian star brushed off questions about his own shooting performance.

“Who cares? We lost. We’ve just got to move on to the next one. I’ve got to be better, we’ve got to be better,” Doncic said.

“They’re a great defensive team and a great offensive team, so it’s not going to be easy at all. We’re going to have to play very good basketball, focused basketball, for 48 minutes.”

BOSTON – As artificial intelligence begins to take hold in industries across the nation, researchers at Harvard University are hoping to look into its application through their new program called the Digital Data Design Institute (D3). 

During a conference on Tuesday, that event took a musical turn when three-time Grammy Award-winning mixing engineer Derek Ali took the stage to create a song for them in 60 seconds using AI and a few simple questions.

Can AI help the creative process?  

“Creators are able to be more efficient as they are creating,” said Ali, “It’s a little bit of a push and pull as we are trying to figure out the legalities.”

“We are thinking about its application and to all types workers around the world,” says Karim Lakhani, founder of D^3, “We should not be passive receivers of what this does to us, but be active in both shaping its direction and the rate by which it improves.”

When it comes to music, the growth rate of AI matters – especially if anyone can flood the market with quickly generated music that takes little effort to create.

“The feeling that someone gets from being in the studio, right? The imperfections of human creation – all these things are completely eliminated now,” said Ali, a mixer who has worked with artists like Kendrick Lamar. “If the entry point to knowing how to create a song is as simple as typing a prompt with no creativity, then what does that mean for people who are looking for inspiration through music?”

Harnessing the power of AI  

Ali has created a music mixing platform called EngineEars. He is actively working on ways to incorporate AI into the program or his own workflow. It’s about striking a balance between creativity and automation.

“We are looking to harness the power of AI to help creators around the world,” said Ali. “Being able to have something that can monitor sound coming out of your master channels and give you suggestions on what to tweak. When it comes to removing dry air between recordings, that can take hours.”

“Eliminating busy work from the process of the creative can reduce friction,” said Jonathan Wyner, a professor at Berklee College of Music in Boston.

Potential pitfalls of AI  

Wyner is hosting an AI symposium at Berklee in June. He is eager to see the creative capabilities of AI but wary of it saturating the music market with too much music or with fakes.

“It creates new possibilities when you can sing into a machine, and, all of a sudden, your voice is transformed into a saxophone. There could there be more Beatles records, more David Bowie records,” said Wyner. “If litigation and legislation doesn’t get ahead of this, it going to be really easy for deep fakes to happen. With mimicry, you lose control of your voice.”

This is where D3 steps in to try to get ahead of the questions and to determine how best to proceed as a society and a workforce.

“We as a culture have to get ready for an understanding of how those changes will be and collectively respond to them,” said Lakhani. 

Boston, MA (May 6, 2024) – Boston Children’s Chorus (BCC) today announced the eight locations across the city at which the organization will host choir rehearsals for their 22^nd season, including new partnerships with Menino Arts Center in Hyde Park and The Presentation School Foundation Community Center in Brighton. BCC will also continue to provide access to high-quality chorus programs at the six rehearsal spaces from last season, located in Dorchester, Jamaica Plain, Roxbury, and the South End.

“We are keeping with our mission by partnering with organizations that represent a vibrant cross-section of locations across Boston and connect our city’s diverse communities,” said BCC Executive Director Andrés Holder. “Our new partnerships with Menino Arts Center and The Presentation School Foundation Community Center will help us expand our offerings and build upon our accessibility to the youth of our region already provided by returning partners.”

Please find additional information on choir locations below:

First Parish Dorchester

Address: 10 Parish Street, Dorchester, MA 02122

Neighborhood: Dorchester

Choirs: Dorchester Intermediate Choir and Dorchester Training II Choir

Eliot Hall

Address: 7 Eliot Street A, Jamaica Plain 02130

Neighborhood: Jamaica Plain

Choirs: Jamaica Plain Training I Choir

Menino Arts Center

Address: 26 Central Avenue, Hyde Park, MA, 02136

Neighborhood: Hyde Park

Choirs: Hyde Park Training Choir 

The Presentation School Foundation Community Center

Address: 640 Washington Street, Brighton, MA 02135

Neighborhood: Brighton

Choirs: Brighton Training Choir

Roxbury Community College

Address: 1234 Columbus Avenue, Boston, MA 02120

Neighborhood: Roxbury

Choirs: Recital Choir & Roxbury Intermediate Advanced Choir

Union Church Boston

Address: 485 Columbus Avenue, Boston, MA 02118

Neighborhood: South End

Choirs: Premier Choir & Concert Choir

United South End Settlements (USES) Headquarters

Address: 48 Rutland Street, Boston, MA 02118

Neighborhood: South End

Choirs: South End Training I Choir

ZUMIX

Address: 260 Sumner Street, East Boston, MA 02128

Neighborhood: East Boston

Choirs: East Boston Training I Choir

Rehearsals start in September of 2024. Those interested in learning more can contact BCC at [email protected] or register at https://www.bostonchildrenschorus.org/join-us/sing-with-us.

BCC is supported in part by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency. Our East Boston after school rehearsal site at ZUMIX is generously sponsored by Loomis, Sayles and Company.

About Boston Children’s Chorus

Boston Children’s Chorus (BCC) was founded in 2003 by Hubie Jones, a civic leader who has worked for six decades to address the social problems facing Boston’s underserved children and communities. Named Boston’s “Ambassadors of Harmony” by The Boston Globe, BCC harnesses the power of music to connect Boston’s diverse communities, cultivate empathy, and inspire social inquiry. BCC choir programs include 10 choirs with singers from 110 different zip codes in and around Boston. BCC presents over 50 performances per season in a wide range of public and private events. They have performed in venues from Boston Symphony Hall, and Royal Albert Hall in London, to Sydney Opera House, and the White House.

BCC is supported in part by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency, and in part by a grant from the Boston Cultural Council, a local agency which is funded by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, administered by the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture.