Joe Horowitz

Leonard Bernstein celebrated Dmitri Shostakovich’s sixtieth birthday by proclaiming him “an authentic genius” – “and there aren’t too many of those around anymore.” That took courage in 1966, when Shostakovich – the leading Soviet musician — remained a Cold War cartoon of the stooge and simpleton. As Bernstein appreciated earlier

From 2010 until its sudden termination by DOGE last April, I directed Music Unwound, an NEH-funded national consortium of orchestras and universities.  A letter from Michael McDonald, the acting NEH chairman, informed me that the demise of Music Unwound represented “an urgent priority for the administration.” It was ended “to safeguard

Having written a book – The Propaganda of Freedom – exploring the relationship between JFK and the arts, and having finished in manuscript a subsequent study of Leonard Bernstein and cultural leadership, I find myself responding to the Trump-Kennedy Center and kindred developments by looking backward at what might have

An early review of my forthcoming novel “The Disciple: A Wagnerian Tale from the Gilded Age,” by Hans Rudolf Vaget, appears in the current issue of “Wagner Notes” — the journal of the Wagner Society of New York (pp. 11-12). The book is already available for purchase (with a discount)

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