Maybe you've noticed a new look here -- subtly new. That accompanies a switch (throughout the ArtsJournal blogs) to new blog software. It does look better, I think, and it's a big improvement, from a working blogger's point of view, making things easier when I write and upload posts. But! Some comments to previous posts didn't make it into the new format. I'll be working on those over the next couple of days, and soon they'll all be visible again. Apologies to the commenters, whose thoughts (which I value very highly) disappeared. Everything … [Read more...]

Last week -- as regular readers know from the schedule of my travels that I posted a while ago -- my wife Anne Midgette and I were at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. This was a happy visit. The two of us were in residence, thanks to the Dorothy E. and DuWayne H. Hansen Musical Arts Series Fund, which brings people in the arts to Bowling Green to work with students -- and, as it turned out, faculty as well -- at the university's college of musical arts. So here are the headlines. We met with students in four classes, one in music, one … [Read more...]

Is it just me, or did Peter Gelb, the incoming general director of the Metropolitan Opera, just announce the most substantial turnaround plan ever seen from a major classical music institution? It’s not just me. Peter did exactly that—or at least he announced the most impressive first stages a turnaround plan that I’ve ever seen. And yet some noticeable portion of the press doesn’t seem to get it. More on the press later, though. (My colleagues weren’t having their best day, I fear.) First let’s see what Peter announced, first in stories … [Read more...]