The current issue of The American Scholar includes a long piece of mine suggesting a possible new direction for contemporary classical music – versus the “makeshift music” that deluges our concert halls. I make reference to John Luther Adams, Charles Ives, Jean Sibelius, and Ferruccio Busoni. To read the whole
Kevin Haden, Senior Associate Dean of Strategic Engagement and Institutional Excellence at the Curtis Institute of Music, shares the importance of giving young people the space to define their own creative vision.
Mere hours before its board renamed the Kennedy Center for Donald Trump, Persuasion ran my online piece on Trump, the Kennedy Center, JFK, and Leonard Bernstein. I will be following up with a 50-minute “More than Music” feature on NPR, to run in January. Here’s the Persuasion article: When people
Literary critic and academic John Carey died last week at the age of ninety-one. I always enjoyed reading his reviews. If you hadn’t already guessed how the Bloomsbury set and their literary contemporaries viewed common folk, his book The Intellectuals and the Masses gives you chapter and verse. I enjoyed Henry Oliver’s appreciation of
Let’s stop cocking around and just let people vote in peace.
This will the last post for 2025. I’ll be back in the first week of January. For now, let’s talk about voting.
In this meh land of ours, voting has always been restricted. One by one, restrictions based on sex, creed, color, religion, land ownership, and hair color have been...
The exhibition opened recently at La Contemporaine (an institution associated with Paris Nanterre University). It is free and runs until March 14, 2026. Have a look at some of the montages.
As a longtime reader of Paul Krugman's columns, I can say without hesitation that this is his best Substack conversation yet about AI and its ramifications. Thanks to Paul Kedrosky's clarity, I understand a helluva lot more of what is going on than I did until now.
On June 8, 2020, a letter was sent and signed by 300 artists who were Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). It has since been signed by over 100,000 people. After 5 years, the report card shows a failing grade.
On May 25, 2020, as COVID-19 was killing millions of people all over the world, one Black man in...
Everyone's talking about AI, and you're being pestered to use it every time you open your phone. But are you aware the extent that AI has taken over how much of what you see and hear online?
Erin Harkey, CEO of Americans for the Arts, shares the critical role that the arts play in society and actions everyone can take to advocate for their public support.
In 2020, the AARP’s Global Brain Health Alliance published a consensus report, Music on our Minds: The Rich Potential of Music to Promote Brain Health and Mental Well-Being. The report, produced in consultation with the National Endowment for the Arts, cited promising research on the value of music training for older adults.
