Category: AJBlogs

We have learned that the superlative clarinetist and soprano saxophonist Bob Wilber died at his home in England earlier this month. – Doug Ramsey

Getting to know opera via recording is like on-line dating — no reason why it shouldn’t work, and it often does. Then you walk into something like Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane with well-founded hopes, and you leave trying to reconcile what you thought it was on recording with what you’ve just experienced. – David Patrick Stearns

I didn’t read any of the program notes for the Wendy Whelan-Maya Beiser-Lucinda Childs-David Lang piece the day at Jacob’s Pillow. I didn’t even read the spoken text. Why then, did I find tears pricking at my eyes as the piece neared its end? – Deborah Jowitt

It’s been two years since I posted my effort at categorizing the benefits of the arts. The subject is an urgent one because of both the social and political pressures to justify funding and our need to be able to articulate the inherent value of the arts to a disbelieving (or at least bemused) public. So, again, here goes. – Doug Borwick

When I watch a dance that I’ve also seen a few years earlier, I perceive it differently. Has it changed? Maybe. Have I changed? Of course. I’ve viewed and written about all but one of the Kyle Abraham works works performed this past week at Jacob’s Pillow, and things catch my attention that evaded it before. (And here’s another question: do I only remember what I wrote about and forget what I didn’t mention earlier?) – Deborah Jowitt

Professional colleagues with sharp political and philosophical differences would do well to learn about the virtues of civility and respectful disagreement from Jane Panetta and Rujeko Hockley, co-curators of the controversy-plagued Whitney Biennial. They deftly double-teamed me during the following interview. – Lee Rosenbaum

How did Aaron Copland’s film music attempt to counteract the Hollywood influence of Erich Korngold? To what degree did he draw inspiration from the master Mexican populist Silvestre Revueltas? How did the Red Scare change Copland’s style in the 1950s? – Joe Horowitz

I’ve been to every single 2019 production at the stupendous opera house facing the Getty family’s cricket ground at Wormsley. The Garsington/Wormsley experience is thrilling, partly because, in addition to the high musical standards, there’s a remarkable level of service. – Paul Levy

Preparing an August 15 PostClassical Ensemble program for The Phillips Collection in DC, I discovered myself newly entranced by one of the most magical figures in the history of Western music. – Joe Horowitz