Years ago, before I was shown the door, I briefly taught at the Manhattan School of Music within their graduate program for aspirant orchestral musicians. My intention was to impart some knowledge about the history of the orchestra in order to shed light on the decline of orchestras and of orchestral performance – and to suggest that young musicians might be able contribute … [Read more...] about What Are Orchestral Musicians For?
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THE FUTURE OF ORCHESTRAS — Part Six: What’s an Orchestra For?
Back in the 1990s, Harvey Lichtenstein – who recreated the Brooklyn Academy of Music – invited me to lunch and asked me if I wanted to run an orchestra. Harvey had just read my notorious Jeremiad Understanding Toscanini: How He Became an American Culture-God and Helped Create a New Audience for Old Music. That was published by Knopf when a book about classical music might … [Read more...] about THE FUTURE OF ORCHESTRAS — Part Six: What’s an Orchestra For?
On Rescuing a “Dead Art Form” — Take Two
It seems to me pretty obvious that nowadays it’s far easier to stage a successful Hamlet or Three Sisters than a successful Aida or Siegfried. And one reason is equally obvious: finding an actor to play Hamlet or Masha is no problem; finding a dramatic soprano for Aida or a Heldentenor for Siegfried is difficult to impossible. At the heart of Conrad L. Osborne’s … [Read more...] about On Rescuing a “Dead Art Form” — Take Two
On Rescuing a “Dead Art Form” — A Landmark Book on Opera in Performance
This weekend's "Wall Street Journal" includes my review of Conrad L. Osborne's new mega-book "Opera as Opera" -- the most important English-language treatment of opera in performance ever written: During the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, when classical music was a lot more robust than nowadays, High Fidelity was the American magazine of choice for lay connoisseurs and not a few … [Read more...] about On Rescuing a “Dead Art Form” — A Landmark Book on Opera in Performance
Bernstein at Brevard — Take Two: The Artist and Politics
The Bernstein Centenary celebration at the Brevard Music Festival last month was multi-faceted. I was invited to explore the Bernstein story for a week with Brevard’s exceptional high school orchestra (the festival also hosts college and professional ensembles). The result was the multi-media “Bernstein the Educator” program that I described in my previous blog. I was also … [Read more...] about Bernstein at Brevard — Take Two: The Artist and Politics