{"id":564,"date":"2011-02-17T12:13:45","date_gmt":"2011-02-17T12:13:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp\/?p=564"},"modified":"2011-02-17T12:13:45","modified_gmt":"2011-02-17T12:13:45","slug":"you_wont_believe_it_paganini","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/2011\/02\/you_wont_believe_it_paganini\/","title":{"rendered":"You Won’t Believe It: Paganini"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m not normally a fan of Top Ten lists of any variety (though I sometimes consider making Top Ten lists of critics I don’t want making Top Ten lists), but I have to stand behind Anthony Tommasini’s 2-week Top 10 Composers list<\/a> for the response it generated. No, not the OUTRAGE on the interwebz–no women! no one alive! no one not-white!–or the nearly 2,000 comments on the Times’ <\/i>website, but for this letter from an 8-year-old who we will refer to as Lucas The Awesome. <\/p>\n

From Anthony Tommasini:<\/p>\n

\n

My two-week project <\/a>to select the 10 greatest composers, which involved a series of articles, blog posts and videos, concluded with an article in the Arts & Leisure<\/a>
\nsection on Jan. 23. But I continue to receive lively, interesting
\nreactions from readers. My favorite was a hand-written letter from
\nLucas Amory, who is 8 years old and lives on the Upper West Side of
\nManhattan. Lucas is a serious piano student and the son of two noted
\nviolists, Misha Amory of the Brentano String Quartet and Hsin-Yun Huang.<\/p>\n

Lucas attends the Special Music School at the Kaufmann Center (in
\nhis letter he says that he goes to the Lucy Moses School, which
\noccupies the same building). He writes that he adores music and offers
\ntwo lists: “THE TEN GREATEST COMPOSERS AND: THE ONES I LIKE BEST.” He
\nclearly understands the difference between all-time greats and personal
\nfavorites — quite impressive for an 8-year-old.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

From Lucas Amory:<\/p>\n

\"15letterfront-blog480.jpg\"\"15letterback-blog480.jpg\" <\/p>\n

Please note point 4A, “If I hurt your feelings I’m sorry,” and also, “I read about you in the newspaper.” I’m not maternally-inclined, but after this and an episode last week in which an 11-year-old named Sophie found my Blackberry in a cab and called my mom (listed under “Mom”), I’m feeling more pro-children than usual. <\/p>\n

I also especially like point 5 (“This one my dad chose for me: Schubert. I gotta say I have to agree. I don’t know why, but I’ll do it.”), because it so perfectly exemplifies the unexplainable musical biases in all of us, critics included. <\/p>\n

And speaking of biases, I’d like to draw your attention, if I may, to a project I’m working on with many great colleagues. It’s a festival at Carnegie this spring called Spring for Music<\/a> <\/i>(a la Fall for Dance), and its intention is to encourage adventurous (oh, that word…) programming by North American orchestras. All tickets are $25, but the most important matter at hand is a Fantasy Program contest<\/a> that ends at midnight EST tonight. Let’s call it “So You Think You Can Program,” and it’s for all the haters (present blogger included) who think they can do a better job programming than most orchestras. The winner of the contest will get to present their program (recordings, of course) on a national Performance Today<\/i> broadcast. <\/p>\n

I think everyone who has submitted a program is a man. Groan, right? There was a flurry of Twitter activity over the hashtag #DWG<\/a> (Dead White Guys) recently. I’m going to take it to Twitter<\/a> and see if we can get some #AWW (Alive White Women) #WASP (Who Aren’t Submitting Programs) activity going. <\/p>\n

I would also like to invite Lucas to submit a program, even if it is of works by his two favorite , competing #DWG’s.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m not normally a fan of Top Ten lists of any variety (though I sometimes consider making Top Ten lists of critics I don’t want making Top Ten lists), but I have to stand behind Anthony Tommasini’s 2-week Top 10 Composers list for the response it generated. No, not the OUTRAGE on the interwebz–no women! […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-564","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}