Why does it begin with a shofar call? Once you compare the famous, startling first three notes of Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story” score with a real shofar sounding “Tekiah g’dolah,” as I did in 1996 to demonstrate this point on WNYC, the resemblance is undeniable. Once you notice it, this shofar theme is woven…
Composer Jack Gottlieb, who passed away February 23 at the age of 80, was often asked to speak and write about Leonard Bernstein, the maestro whom he served in his youth as an assistant at the New York Philharmonic. But Gottlieb was one of the finest musicians around in his own right, and in a…
“There isn’t an after party because I know pretty much everyone here,” composer David Amram announced at the end of his 80th birthday celebration at Symphony Space on November 11. “I figured that with 500 of you, plus your dates, plus the 60-piece orchestra, the rest of the performers and our families, we’d need Madison…
Meet Morris Schutt, the Mennonite “Herzog.” David Samuels interviews Noam Chomsky. The Arc Project for Palestine, a plan for a future Palestinian State, was named “Future Project of the Year” at the World Architecture Festival in Barcelona. “Weimar Cinema, 1919-1933: Daydreams and Nightmares” opens this week at the Museum of Modern Art. Hershey Felder plays…
The Museum of the Jewish Diaspora in Tel Aviv is showing Andy Warhol’s Jewish portraits. Folk legend Pete Seeger supports a financial, but not an artistic boycott of Israel. “Hitler and the Germans,” an exhibit at Berlin’s German Historical Museum, is a huge hit. Also a huge hit in Germany: Israeli bands. Leonard Bernstein’s late…
This August in Atlanta, when the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) convenes, one of the attendees will be one of America’s most accomplished, if under-celebrated, Jewish musicians. For many years, the pianist Zita Carno (originally Carnovsky) has delighted music lovers with heartfelt and elegant performances of demanding modern music, first in New York, then…
Revealing the secret behind a magic trick is usually not a good thing, but when it comes to real artistry, uncovering the nitty-gritty details of creation can often deepen our appreciation of an artist’s genius. In the case of Leonard Bernstein, a few recent and forthcoming releases help pull back the curtain on the composer…
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