In 1966 the New York Philharmonic undertook an 18-day Stravinsky festival as a kind of try-out for Lukas Foss, whom Leonard Bernstein favored to take over as music director. The conductors included Foss, Bernstein, Ernest Ansermet (who had conducted for Diaghilev), Kiril Kondrashin (a major Soviet artist), and Stravinsky himself. George Balanchine choreographed Ragtime for … [Read more...] about Arts Leadership in the Age of Trump
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AT THE BARRICADES: The Arts in the Age of Trump
You’re looking at a photo of me – the old guy with the beard – being thanked by students at East Lake High School, a semi-rural public high school on the outskirts of El Paso, Texas. Five hundred East Lake students had just spent 90 minutes watching and listening to a presentation sampling Redes (1935) – the iconic film of the Mexican Revolution, a tale of exploited fishermen … [Read more...] about AT THE BARRICADES: The Arts in the Age of Trump
Are Orchestras Better than Ever? Why Riccardo Muti is Wrong
Are orchestras better than ever? Riccardo Muti thinks so. Recently, dedicating a bust of Fritz Reiner at Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, he said: “The level of the orchestras in the world – especially in the seventies and eighties -- has gone up everywhere.” What is Muti talking about? I suppose he’s applying the criterion of perfection. Perfect intonation, perfect ensemble. What … [Read more...] about Are Orchestras Better than Ever? Why Riccardo Muti is Wrong
Music and the National Mood
PostClassical Ensemble – the DC chamber orchestra I co-founded a dozen years ago – produced a concert at the Washington National Cathedral last Saturday night that seemed to address the national mood. These are fractious times – times in which the arts can acquire a special pertinence. Times in which music can be a provocation or a balm. We titled our program “The Trumpet … [Read more...] about Music and the National Mood
Trifonov Plays Shostakovich
No other music so instantly evokes a sense of place as that of Dmitri Shostakovich. When Daniil Trifonov launched Shostakovich’s E minor Prelude at Carnegie Hall last week, the bleakness and exigency of Stalin’s Russia at once chilled the huge space. The Shostakovich affect can seem exotic or native, according to circumstance. I would say it today complements that part of the … [Read more...] about Trifonov Plays Shostakovich