I wasn’t initially planning to write anything about Wednesday night’s Carnegie Hall concert by the Chicago Symphony under Klaus Makela, their 30-year-old impending music director. I’ve written about Makela quite enough. I have no doubt that he is immensely gifted. I have seen him ignite an orchestra with a rare exercise of spontaneous authority. But he seems to me too young for … [Read more...] about Klaus Makela Again
Ivan Fischer’s Mahler, Manfred Honeck’s “Elektra,” and What Happens When an Orchestra “Feels It”
"As the repertoire ages, as the world changes, we will have ever fewer Fischers and Honecks, and ever more Dueñasas, Lims, and Chos. The outcome seems to me unpredictable. It could be a refreshment and it could be a dilution." A dozen years ago, Ivan Fischer came to Carnegie Hall with his Budapest Festival Orchestra for a Dvorak program. So revelatory was their performance … [Read more...] about Ivan Fischer’s Mahler, Manfred Honeck’s “Elektra,” and What Happens When an Orchestra “Feels It”
Trump and the Arts — Take 2: Jimmy Kimmel on the Kennedy Center Shutdown
As a sequel to my NPR show on Donald Trump’s incursions at the Kennedy Center, the NEH, and the NEA, here’s something Jimmy Kimmel said on TV the other night: Trump says he’s closing the Kennedy center for roughly two years, so it can be rebuilt into the finest performing arts facility on earth, with a reopening that will rival and surpass anything that’s ever happened … [Read more...] about Trump and the Arts — Take 2: Jimmy Kimmel on the Kennedy Center Shutdown
Trump and the Arts
The following article is an abridged adaptation of my January 22 NPR report on recent developments in government and the arts — at the NEA, the NEH, and the Kennedy Center -- under President Donald J. Trump. I write: "The arts sector feels invaded by aliens. The incursion is so abrupt, so rude, that it parallels the startling empowerment of Trump loyalists like Kristi … [Read more...] about Trump and the Arts
My New Novel: “The Disciple”
My forthcoming novel, The Disciple: A Wagnerian Tale of the Gilded Age, may be my best book. A prequel to The Marriage: The Mahlers in New York (2023), it’s already available via pre-order. (And if you order both books, you get a discount.) My story tracks the prodigious American impact of Richard Wagner’s protégé Anton Seidl. It challenges obstinate stereotypes of Gilded … [Read more...] about My New Novel: “The Disciple”