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?
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El Paso, Kurt Weill, and Tornillo’s Tent City
Readers of this blog may remember my last filing from El Paso – a “Kurt Weill’s America” festival, part of the NEH-supported “Music Unwound” consortium I direct, that ignited a week of discussion and debate about immigration past and present. My most memorable experience that week was visiting Eastlake High School, in a semi-rural colonia, and telling 3,000 students about … [Read more...] about El Paso, Kurt Weill, and Tornillo’s Tent City
“The Great Composer You’ve Never Heard Of” — and how he was suppressed by Carlos Chavez
“The Great Composer You’ve Never Heard Of” – the most recent “PostClassical” broadcast via the WWFM Classical Network – spends two hours exploring the astounding achievements of Silvestre Revueltas (1899-1940). The show also reveals how Revueltas’s colleague Carlos Chavez – a lesser composer, but with more institutional clout – suppressed Revueltas’s music. It’s all here. As … [Read more...] about “The Great Composer You’ve Never Heard Of” — and how he was suppressed by Carlos Chavez
THE FUTURE OF ORCHESTRAS — Part Five: Kurt Weill, El Paso, and the National Mood
“Wherever I found decency and humanity in the world, it reminded me of America.” Kurt Weill wrote those words after returning from a visit to Germany in 1947. I read them aloud at least a dozen times during the Kurt Weill festival in El Paso last week. Every time I invited my listeners to consider whether or not they still apply. Because Weill was an exemplary immigrant, … [Read more...] about THE FUTURE OF ORCHESTRAS — Part Five: Kurt Weill, El Paso, and the National Mood
Can Orchestras Be Re-Invented?
David Skinner, in his article in the current Humanities Magazine about the NEH-funded Music Unwound consortium that I direct, describes Delta David Gier, the exemplary music director of the South Dakota Symphony, addressing a room of university students and faculty: “He starts by asking everyone to reimagine an orchestra as a humanities institution – one that brings together … [Read more...] about Can Orchestras Be Re-Invented?