For this weekend's "Wall Street Journal" I have written an impassioned encomium for William Dawson's thrilling "Negro Folk Symphony" of 1934 -- still (alas) buried treasure: In 1926 the African-American poet Langston Hughes wrote a seminal Harlem Renaissance essay, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain.” The mountain “standing in the way of any true Negro art in … [Read more...] about The Best of the “Black Symphonies”
Allan Bloom, Identity Politics, and “Closed Minds”
Looking for another book not long ago, I stumbled upon Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind. In 1987, it was a national sensation, a trigger-point for debate over the legacy of the sixties and its “counter-culture.” Subtitled “How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students,” Bloom’s salvo attacked from the right. It … [Read more...] about Allan Bloom, Identity Politics, and “Closed Minds”
JFK’s Cold War Cultural Dogma — and Where It Came From
During the cultural Cold War, President John F. Kennedy delivered eloquent speeches claiming that only “free societies” fostered great creative art. But no one scanning centuries of Western literature and music could possibly believe that. Among countless counter-examples was the Soviet Union at that very moment. Its film-makers included Tarkovsky, its poets Akhmatova, its … [Read more...] about JFK’s Cold War Cultural Dogma — and Where It Came From
“Best of the Year” — The Gamelan Experience: From Debussy to Lou Harrison
PostClassical Ensemble’s “Cultural Fusion: The Gamelan Experience,” presented on January 23, 2019, at the Washington National Cathedral, was just named THE BEST CLASSICAL MUSIC EVENT of 2019 by Washington Classical Review. To hear extended excerpts from this one-of-a-kind event -- featuring Javanese and Balinese gamelans, and surveying more than a century of gamelan-inspired … [Read more...] about “Best of the Year” — The Gamelan Experience: From Debussy to Lou Harrison
“Pique Dame” at the Met — and at the Bolshoi
The formidable Norwegian soprano Lisa Davidsen, making her Metropolitan Opera debut in Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades, is right now New York’s most talked about opera singer. I caught the final performance in the run, on December 21 – and discovered myself mainly thinking about the Bolshoi Opera’s historic four-week New York season of 1975. The Bolshoi was a throwback to the … [Read more...] about “Pique Dame” at the Met — and at the Bolshoi