As long as people like Ilona Oltuski are "on the job," I'm also betting on an indefinitely extended delay in the "decline" of classical music.
Read More »Jon Sobel
Language Matters in Life and Business: Google Drops “Don’t Be Evil” Slogan
What did the search giant's motto really mean, anyway?
Read More »Concert Review: The Chiara String Quartet – ‘Brahms by Heart: The Complete String Quartets’ (NYC 10/2/2015)
The musicians established their interlocked feels for the ebb and flow of the music right off. With grace and power they brought out the Romantic spirit of the music as well as the proto-Modernism in Brahms's unexpected harmonies and transitions.
Read More »Theater Review (NYC Broadway): Deaf West’s ‘Spring Awakening’
This isn't the first show I've seen featuring deaf actors. But it's the first on a Broadway scale, and the first musical. It is, to switch metaphorical senses, eye-opening.
Read More »Theater/Dance Review (NYC Off-Broadway): ‘Cinderella,’ a Baroque Burlesque Ballet by Company XIV
The latest dance-theater extravaganza from Austin McCormick and his scarily talented troupe transports us into a magical world of tongue-in-cheek glitz and deeply felt emotion rolled densely into a concoction of wonders.
Read More »Music Review: Jake Shimabukuro – The ‘Travels’ of a Ukulele Virtuoso
Shimabukuro's playing has always been a pleasure on pretty much any material he undertakes to put across, originals and covers alike.
Read More »Language Matters in Life and Business: Disrupting the Climate Change “Brand”
Some scientists have been pushing to replace the phrase "climate change" with a more effective term.
Read More »Music Review: Des Ark – ‘Everything Dies’
Interesting melodies with counterpoint from smoky background vocals coalesce with beautifully played and recorded instruments to build a blurry late-night Paris or Lower East Side mood – with an undercurrent of anger.
Read More »CD Giveaway: Yo-Yo Ma and Kathryn Stott – ‘Songs from the Arc of Life’ with Booklet Signed by Yo-Yo Ma
Enter to win a signed copy of the new collaborate album from cellist Yo-Yo Ma and his longtime friend, pianist Kathryn Stott.
Read More »Book Review: ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ by Lewis Carroll, 150th Anniversary Edition Illustrated by Salvador Dalí
It's a great pleasure to rediscover Lewis Carroll's classic in this modestly priced new Princeton University Press edition, with marvelous illustrations created by Salvador Dalí for a long out-of-print 1969 printing.
Read More »