A myth about music, made popular by modern and postmodern 20th-century critics, is that it consists merely of certain frequencies deployed in various rhythms by a range of sources. This positivist view of music holds that music alone, without the aid of words or visuals, cannot refer or point to some experience outside itself. This…
The Scent and the Sound of Roses
It is that time of year when I love to putter about in my garden, which somehow feels simpatico with the creativity of composing music. As a matter of fact, a number of great composers have loved nature’s flora and have responded in music. It would be lovely to explore some flower-inspired compositions, but we…
How Stalin Canceled ‘Hamlet’ in the Soviet Union—and What It Can Teach Us about Cancel Culture
William Shakespeare’s play “Hamlet” is considered by some to be the single greatest story ever written. “Hamlet” has it all: ghosts, sword fights, suicide, revenge, lust, murder, philosophy, faith, manipulation, and a climactic bloodbath worthy of a Tarantino film. It’s a masterpiece of both high art and sensationalism, the only play I’ve seen performed live…
‘Oedipus Rex’ and the Natural Theater
Sophocles’s “Oedipus Rex” predates us by approximately 2,500 years. By today’s standards, it should have little, if anything, to teach us. After all, it does not speak to the realities of contemporary life. And if we go by today’s “realities,” almost anything cultural or philosophical has the shelf life of a cellphone: We must trade…
Principal Dancer Elsie Shi Communicates Truth Through Art
The first thing that captivated Elsie Shi about classical Chinese dance was the flips—the way dancers looked as if they were flying, the way she felt tumbling through the air. She would try to prolong the feat as long as possible, staying in the air as long as possible, before touching the ground again. “Back then,…
Joyce DiDonato’s Attempt at Schubert’s ‘Winterreise’
On April 23, Erato, a sister company of Time Warner, is releasing the video of a live performance of Schubert’s “Winterreise,” which took place on Dec. 15, 2019 at Carnegie Hall. The brilliant mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, accompanied by Yannick Nézet Seguin, music director of the Metropolitan Opera, drew a capacity audience which included the writer…
Review of Virtual Theater: ‘Call Me Elizabeth’
Movie aficionados are familiar with Elizabeth Taylor for her role as the queen of the Nile in the film “Cleopatra” (1963), for “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf “(1966), an adaptation of Edward Albee’s 1962 play, and for both Tennessee Williams’s “Cat on the Hot Tin Roof” (1958) and “Suddenly, Last Summer” (1959). Furthermore, those who…
What Does It Mean to Be a ‘Vessel’ for Music?
A phrase one hears from time to time among instrumentalists, but especially singers, is their desire to “be a vessel” when performing. As a composer, I have my own version of this sentiment, too, but wondered what it really means. First of all, behind this idea is a certain psychology that goes with performing or…
Theater Review: ‘John Cullum: An Accidental Star’: A Short Glance at a Long, Happy Career
April 11, 2021
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For someone who has been acting in plays since he “was knee-high to a grasshopper,” the 91 years-young John Cullum has lost none of his love for performing. That is evident in “John Cullum: An Accidental Star.” Conceived by Cullum and Jeff Berger and written by David Thompson, the show is a vehicle for the…
Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony: Do You Hear What I Hear?
On Jan. 28, 1936, Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich picked up a copy of the newspaper Pravda and found that he had been labeled anathema to the USSR. Shostakovich’s 1934 opera, “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District,” was “cacophonous” and “an insult to Soviet women,” Pravda claimed. His ballet of the same year, “The Limpid Stream,” was “infected with cynicism.”…
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