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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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TT: Good call

October 2, 2012 by Terry Teachout

I’ve written about the singer-mandolinist Chris Thile on numerous occasions, both here and elsewhere, always with the utmost enthusiasm. He’s a superlatively imaginative artist who never fails to surprise and delight. So I rejoice greatly to report that he has just been awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. I can’t think of anyone who deserves it more.
A fair number of artists whom I admire no less greatly have gotten the nod from the MacArthur Foundation in recent years, among them David Cromer, Stephen Hough, Edgar Meyer, Kay Ryan, Alex Ross, and David Simon. May Chris prosper as they have.
* * *
Chris Thile and the Punch Brothers perform their arrangement of Bach’s Third Brandenburg Concerto live in 2009:

TT: Lookback

October 2, 2012 by Terry Teachout

pulled_over.jpgFrom 2006, some thoughts on the death of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf:

We are all flawed creatures, and one of the impenetrable mysteries of beautiful art is that it can be made by ugly souls. So feel free to mourn the death of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, and to speak admiringly of her artistry–but when you do so, remember that there was more to her than the music she made….

Read the whole thing here.

TT: Almanac

October 2, 2012 by Terry Teachout

“He didn’t have anything to say about death; the only thing he ever had anything to say about was music. From his own point of view as a pianist and trumpet player he could tell you whether a piece was hard or easy; in a larger sense, as critic, he could say right off whether a thing was good or bad. His instinctive taste was infalllible within the bounds of his chosen field. Outside of that he was deaf, dumb, blind, even slightly halt and more or less lame. What was death to him; what was plane geometry; what was Spanish Conversation and Composition?”
Dorothy Baker, Young Man With a Horn

Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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