Eileen Reynolds
By Eileen Reynolds
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Culture A Philip Glass pop quiz
Philip Glass turns 83 today. In honor of the prolific composer’s achievements in music for stage and screen, here is a quiz about the minutiae of Glass’s life and work — assembled (how else?) in modular parts. I. MINIMALIST EXPERIMENTS AND THE BIRTH OF GLASS’S ‘INTENTIONLESS MUSIC’ Philip Glass, who is generally regarded as a…
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Culture Philip Glass Settles Some Old Scores
Channeling the good Jewish son he never quite was, Philip Glass gives the first line of his new memoir to his mother: “If you go to New York City to study music,” she warns her youngest on the occasion of his graduation from the University of Chicago in 1957, “you’ll end up like your uncle…
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Culture Everything You Wanted To Know About ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ But Didn’t Ask
Wonder of Wonders By Alisa Solomon Metropolitan Books, 448 pages, $32 Those searching for razzle-dazzle bar mitzvah entertainment need look no further than the Amazing Bottle Dancers, a group of athletic young men who’ll burst into your special event, hoist the guest of honor up onto a chair, perform the suspenseful “bottle dance” from the…
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Culture The Jewish History of ‘God Bless America’
In what would become an iconic display of mournful resolve after the twin towers fell, members of Congress who had gathered on the steps of the Capitol for a press conference on the evening of September 11, 2001, burst into a spontaneous chorus of “God Bless America.” Like many Americans watching that night, I was…
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The Schmooze A ‘God Bless America’ Timeline
From its creation in 1918 to its unofficial adoption as anthem for the fallen of 9/11, “God Bless America” has had quite a history. Here are some of the highlights. August 19, 1918 Cut from the finale of “Yip, Yip, Yaphank,” which opened at New York’s Century Theatre. November 10, 1938 Radio premiere, on “The Kate Smith…
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Culture Deck The Halls With Boughs of Challah
A Jewish music preservation group sets out to make the definitive Hanukkah compilation and ends up with an album dripping with Christmas cheer. That’s not just a humdrum holiday punch line — it’s also an accurate description of the genesis of the Idelsohn Society’s December release, “‘Twas the Night Before Hanukkah: The Musical Battle Between…
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The Schmooze ‘Cello Goddess’ Puts Lot’s Wife to Music
To say that you’ll never think of Lot’s wife the same way after seeing Maya Beiser’s “Elsewhere,” a new “cello opera” that recently played at BAM’s Next Wave Festival, would be a gross understatement. In the Genesis story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot’s wife has no name — let alone speaking lines…
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Culture On a Clear Day You Can See Flatbush
Barbra Streisand has a doll shop in her basement. Part of an old-timey underground “street” — complete with clapboard storefronts and faux-stone walls — built beneath the dream home featured in her 2010 coffee table book, “My Passion for Design,” the showroom for antique playthings fills a void from Streisand’s childhood: “I never played with…
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