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(Posted this afternoon on the TONY Blog) That seismic ripple you just felt rumbling through New York City's classical-music community was the bombshell announcement that George Steel, daredevil impresario of the Miller Theatre at Columbia University, has accepted the position of general director at the Dallas Opera, effective as of October 1, 2008. Steel, a…
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Das Liebesverbot at Glimmerglass OperaThe New York Times, August 12, 2008
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Kiss Me, Kate, I Capuleti e i Montecchi and Giulio Cesare at Glimmerglass OperaThe New York Times, August 11, 2008
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"Intimidated by Mozart's Ghost? Not Anymore"The New York Times, August 10, 2008 An article about Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, whose second opera, Adriana Mater, has been running this summer at the Santa Fe Opera, and whose oratorio, La Passion de Simone, receives its American premiere at the Mostly Mozart Festival on Wednesday (August 13). I'm…
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Things are in flux at the day job right now, which has made finding time for blogging an even greater challenge than usual. But a chance culinary encounter I had last week demands some attention. Last Friday night as I was heading to Bargemusic for the terrific David Holzman recital I reviewed a few days…
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David Holzman at BargemusicThe New York Times, August 4, 2008
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Christiane Oelze, Ken Noda and the Daedalus Quartet at the Kaplan PenthouseThe New York Times, August 2, 2008
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The Marticians at the Juilliard SchoolThe New York Times, August 1, 2008
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(Posted this morning on the TONY Blog) Up until Butthole Surfers frontman Gibby Haynes got arrested — or actually, y’know, didn’t — for assaulting a monitor engineer last night at Webster Hall, I thought the smell permeating the space might be the corpse of late-’80s hardcore finally dissolving into a fetid gelatin. (Or maybe it…
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“Minimalist Man Tries Organizing a Concert Series”The New York Times, July 27, 2008 An article about Foster Reed (pictured left, in a photograph by Rochelle Redfield) and his invaluable new-music label, New Albion, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary with a 10-concert mini-festival at Bard College starting Friday. The label has played an important part…
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What a sad, noble and beautiful opera Benjamin Britten’s Billy Budd is, and how sharply and vividly are its passions enacted in the Paul Curran production currently being presented by the Santa Fe Opera, which I saw this evening (Friday, July 25). The main attraction here, one could argue, is the performance by Teddy Tahu…
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José Feghali at the Michael Schimmel Center for the Performing ArtsThe New York Times, July 16, 2008
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“A Composer Forever English, Cows and All”The New York Times, July 13, 2008 Meant to be posted yesterday but delayed due to Typepad shenanigans, here’s an article marking the 50th anniversary of the passing of English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. Specifically, the article focuses on two recent audio and video releases meant to mark the…
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I never saw At the Gates “back in the day,” so to speak, so I can’t compare last night’s show at Irving Plaza to what the band might have sounded like when they last played here 12 years ago. In 1996 I was barely keeping up with what was new in metal at all, and…
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The downward spiral continues: According to a recent declaration from the Environmental Protection Agency, the “value of a statistical life” in America is $6.9 million, down a million dollars from just five years ago. Sounds like a punchline, but Associated Press science writer Seth Borenstein spells out what it actually means: When drawing up regulations,…
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Washington Square Music Festival Ensemble in Washington Square ParkThe New York Times, July 10, 2008
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The Attacca Quartet at the Museum of Modern ArtThe New York Times, July 8, 2008
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The word waterboarding has become a familiar part of American conversation during the last year or so, but in practical terms it still remains something out of black-ops fiction. That’s why controversial author Christopher Hitchens agreed to a challenge from Vanity Fair editor-in-chief Graydon Carter and submitted to a waterboarding session at the hands of…
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That classical music critics are losing their jobs all over the place is a fact, and a seriously lamentable one. But Justin Davidson — formerly of Newsday, now of New York magazine — offers some sobering context in an essay, “Whither Withering Criticism?,” published today on MusicalAmerica.com: After I left Newsday, where I worked as…
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Andrew Druckenbrod, the sharp classical music critic at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, has been posting short, spontaneous essays in a blog-esque online forum provided by the newspaper for just over a year now. As of just a few days ago, however, Classical Musings has transformed into a real blog. Andrew now operates the whole thing; comments…
Night After Night 