Video by Mathew Pimental At the precise moment that US President Donald Trump was accusing South African President Cyril Ramaphosa of denying acts of racial persecution, the University of Michigan Orchestra began a five-concert tour of South Africa with a smashing two and half hour program at the University of Pretoria. The main work on the program was a neglected … [Read more...] about American Cultural Diplomacy in South Africa Right Now, Courtesy of the University of Michigan
What Ails Today’s Metropolitan Opera? — It’s in the Pit
The current issue of the “New York Review of Books” carries my review of the Metropolitan Opera’s current “Aida” – a new production given fourteen times this season. It features one of the company’s heralded young stars – the soprano Angel Blue – and it’s mainly conducted by the Met’s music director, Yannick Nezet-Seguin. The result is tepid. As “Aida” is the … [Read more...] about What Ails Today’s Metropolitan Opera? — It’s in the Pit
Three Who Quit: Ives, Elgar, Sibelius and the Crisis of Modernism
The current "Musical Opinion" (UK) carries an essay of mine: “Three Who Quit: Ives, Elgar, Sibelius, and the Crisis of Modernism.” Strange bedfellows? Think again. Ultimately, my topic is the dead end afflicting twentieth century classical music. My final sentences read: “The dialectical tension between present and past, long the mainspring for musical creativity, has gone … [Read more...] about Three Who Quit: Ives, Elgar, Sibelius and the Crisis of Modernism
Bernstein, Balanchine, Ellington and the Waning of “Soft Power”
Today’s online Persuasion/The American Purpose runs an essay of mine building on the growing awareness that “soft power” diplomacy, long vital to American foreign policy, seems suddenly in abeyance. Referencing the three most potent cultural ambassadors to the USSR during the Cold War, I write in part: If American diplomacy cannot today deploy a Leonard Bernstein, George … [Read more...] about Bernstein, Balanchine, Ellington and the Waning of “Soft Power”
“An Urgent Priority” — R. I. P.: NEH (1965-2025) — A Postscript
Here's a postscript to my obituary for the National Endowment of the Humanities, and for my own Music Unwound national consortium: I am now apprised – via a form letter -- that the cancellation of Music Unwound (a 15-year-old national consortium of orchestras and universities) “represents an urgent priority for the administration.” Music Unwound has also been … [Read more...] about “An Urgent Priority” — R. I. P.: NEH (1965-2025) — A Postscript