I frame my book Dvorak’s Prophecy and the Vexed Fate of Black Classical Music as a call to action. It ends: “If American classical music -- our performers and institutions of performance, our conservatories, our agencies of philanthropy -- can awaken to the moment at hand, classical music in America may yet acquire a vital future, at last buoyed and directed by a … [Read more...] about The Brevard Project — A Call to Action
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Marian Anderson, Soundbites, and “Dvorak’s Prophecy”
The Conclusion to my book-in-progress When the Arts Mattered: An Exhortation begins: “No viewer could possibly glean the hypnotic impact of Marian Anderson from watching the 2022 public television documentary ‘The Whole World in Her Hands.’ Over the course of one hour and 53 minutes, she is rarely permitted to perform or speak for as long as a minute without some … [Read more...] about Marian Anderson, Soundbites, and “Dvorak’s Prophecy”
Revueltas and Social Justice on NPR
At the top of today’s 50-minute National Public Radio feature on Silvestre Revueltas – the fourth radio documentary I’ve produced for the WAMU newsmagazine “1A” – I observe: “Art promoting social justice is everywhere upon us. It’s what our composers and visual artists and playwrights want to produce, it’s what presenters want to present, it’s what our foundations want to … [Read more...] about Revueltas and Social Justice on NPR
The Russian Stravinsky
What happened to Stravinsky in the West? What to make of his “neo-classicism”? These are questions I’ve many times pondered in this space. The superb Soviet-trained musicians who belatedly discovered Stravinsky’s post-Russian odyssey have certainly heard his music with different ears. The most extreme case I know is that of my great friend Alexander Toradze, for whom … [Read more...] about The Russian Stravinsky
The Arts and Social Justice — Bedfellows?
Today’s online edition of The American Purpose – an indispensable centrist voice pondering the contemporary condition of government, politics, and the arts – includes a piece of mine inviting dialogue on a topic people don’t dare talk about – the insistence that arts institutions necessarily serve as instruments for social justice. You can read the whole article here. What … [Read more...] about The Arts and Social Justice — Bedfellows?