Author: Laura Collins Hughes

Breathing Life, And Fire, Into Organ Music

Paul Jacobs, chairman of the organ department at the Juilliard School, says he wants “to draw attention to an instrument that is sorely misunderstood and neglected by the mainstream of classical music.” He scoffs at organists who demand historically correct playing at the expense of artistic interpretation. “‘Part of me thinks: “Who ordained you?'” he says. “We need musicians who can promote their work with fire and conviction.”

Communist Cache Goes To NYU

“The songwriter, labor organizer and folk hero Joe Hill has been the subject of poems, songs, an opera, books and movies. His will, written in verse the night before a Utah firing squad executed him in 1915 and later put to music, became part of the labor movement’s soundtrack. Now the original copy of that penciled will is among the unexpected historical gems unearthed from a vast collection of papers and photographs never before seen publicly that the Communist Party USA has donated to New York University.”

SF Opera Goes Back On The Radio

“The San Francisco Opera will broadcast its performances once a month beginning April 1 on classical radio station KDFC (102.1 FM) — the first time in 25 years that the company’s offerings will be heard regularly on the air. … In addition to the KDFC deal, the Opera has joined a coalition of opera companies whose performances will be broadcast nationally and internationally by the WFMT Radio Network in Chicago.”

Nice Design, Mr. Calatrava. Now, What About Traffic?

“Two weeks from disclosing their final plan for the nation’s tallest building, the project’s developer and architect offered fresh details Monday night, trying to calm fears about traffic and presenting their own plan for a nearby park to honor Chicago’s founding father. ‘We have given a lot of importance to the relationship to the city,’ said the skyscraper’s architect, Zurich-based Santiago Calatrava….”

Talking Arts In DC, Sans Conservative Caution

As Americans for the Arts gathered in Washington, “the guest of honor was Robert MacNeil, the journalist, who gave a bold and perhaps even controversial speech that included sustained criticism of religious fundamentalism.” He decried “‘the swing to Puritanism’ that ‘gained energy when political consultants and lobbying organizations discovered the catnip (and the fundraising power) of pandering to those who could be persuaded that art is decadent, or immoral, or homosexual, and destructive of finer values.'”

War As Entertainment: A Moneymaker Even Now

The Iraq war has plummeted in popularity, but the war movie “300” is a hit. “The problem is that our popular culture doesn’t want to talk about the consequences of war. We have reality TV but it doesn’t serve up in-depth coverage of the three struggles that are going very badly for the United States: the raging war in Iraq, the chronic war in Afghanistan and the still-diplomatic war with Iran over that state’s nuclear ambitions. War in the abstract is entertaining, though.”