By Rebecca Schmid Journeys have provided powerful inspiration to writers, painters and composers alike, opening eyes to new ways of seeing the world. The broadening of artists’ palettes has sometimes allowed them to capture a landscape more vividly than the natives could themselves. One only has to think of Dvorak’s New World Symphony, Gauguin’s portraits [...]
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by Sedgwick Clark Shaham’s 1939 Dark Horse Gil Shaham had an epiphany. After years of recognition as one of the brightest young lights of the concert circuit, the Israeli-American violinist conjured one of the most imaginative programming concepts in years. He had been struck by how many violin concertos written in the 1930s had entered [...]
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by Sedgwick Clark It’s a most improbable New York story: Broadway salutes a theater critic, of all things, by dimming its lights during prime box-office time prior to curtain. How often has that happened? No one would have been more astonished to receive this honor than its recipient, Howard Kissel, theater critic of the New [...]
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by Sedgwick Clark I first met Omus Hirshbein in Carnegie Hall’s executive offices, where he worked for a brief time in 1973 between tenures at the Hunter College Concert Bureau and the 92nd Street Y. He was walking out of a planning meeting, saying in frustration to anyone nearby, “They won’t listen to me—they should [...]
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by Edna Landau To ask a question, please write Ask Edna. Dear Edna: I am a composer, recently graduated with two Masters degrees, and I have chosen the administrative route for a small and ambitious organization. In your earlier column entitled “Overqualified and Underemployed”, you rightly wrote that many connections can be made working in [...]
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by Edna Landau To ask a question, please write Ask Edna. Dear Edna: I hope you won’t mind a slightly different question from those you have been answering so splendidly and thoroughly in your excellent columns, asked by one of your former colleagues and longtime friends. I come from a small town in the United Kingdom. [...]
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Welcome to Eugenia’s Verbier Adventure! If this is your first visit to the Verbier Vlog, there’s a real treat in store for you—scroll down and follow Eugenia as she prepares to participate in the 2011 Verbier Festival; interviews many of her colleagues, famous and not-so-famous; and shares conversations with many of the people who make [...]
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By James Jorden Instead of beating my brains out trying to make sense of the comings and goings in the final act of Simon Boccanegra at the Met (or am I just deluded to find it unlikely that convicted rebels should be marched to their execution through the Doge’s unguarded council chamber?), I thought this [...]
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First impressions are so important, so how can we prevent making initial judgments when we encounter something new? Unlike our beloved editor, Sedge Clark, I am not a reluctant blogger. Blogging is a staple characteristic within my generation, along with social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. How else am I supposed to keep in [...]
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In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I would like to express my gratitude to Publisher Stephanie Challener for her invitation to write this blog on the Musical America website, to the News Editor of MusicalAmerica.com, Susan Elliott, for her encouragement, and to the NEA Institute on Classical Music & Opera at the Journalism School at [...]
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