Top Posts From AJBlogs 07.04.16

The Future of Orchestras (Cont’d): Would the Philharmonic Sing Palestrina?
Frankly, the consolidated thread of considered comments elicited by my mega-blog on the future of orchestras has taken me by surprise. These are informed comments from inside the orchestra world. I have also been deluged with emails whose content must remain private. They, too, register the thoughts, frustrations, and anxieties of musicians, educators, and administrators. … read more
AJBlog: Unanswered Question >Published 2016-07-04

Resonance
I’m off to Seattle this week for a couple performances of Resonance by the Seattle Chamber Music Society (SCMS).  Resonance is scored for violin and three cellos, and I’m really fortunate to have an outstanding group playing it: … read more
AJBlog: Infinite Curves Published 2016-07-04

“I dreamed of blue fireballs”
I have nothing but pleasant memories of my mother’s family’s Fourth of July cookouts, which rank among the highlights of my small-town youth. … In 1991, a quarter of a century ago, I published a memoir in which, among many other things, I described those Fourth of July cookouts. This is part of what I wrote. … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2016-07-04

[ssba_hide]

If They’d Made A Musical About Tammany Hall, Would Its Auditorium Be Under The Wrecking Ball Right Now?

“Liberty Theaters L.L.C., which owns the building and used it until January as the Union Square Theater, is reconstructing the four-story hall as a six-story office building, marketed by Newmark Grubb Knight Frank as 44 Union Square. The auditorium space will be demolished. A two-and-half-story glass dome will be erected on the rooftop.”

Alex Ross Looks At Music Used As A Weapon

“The intersection of music and violence has inspired a spate of academic studies. On my desk is a bleak stack of books examining torture and harassment, the playlists of Iraq War soldiers and interrogators, musical tactics in American crime-prevention efforts, sonic cruelties inflicted in the Holocaust and other genocides, the musical preferences of Al Qaeda militants and neo-Nazi skinheads.”

‘Game Of Thrones’ And The Politics Of 2016

Emily Nussbaum: “Season 6 … felt perversely relevant in this election year. It was dominated by debates about purity versus pragmatism; the struggles of female candidates in a male-run world; family dynasties with ugly histories; and assorted deals with various devils. George R. R. Martin surely didn’t intend his blockbuster series of fantasy books … to be an allegorical text for U.S. voters in 2016. But that’s what you get with modern water-cooler dramas, which so often work as an aesthetic Esperanto that lets us talk about politics without fighting about the news.”