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In New York City, you are always walking past a story. A beaming stranger on the subway. A building going up or coming down. A commemorative sign: the site of Manhattan’s slave market; the site of a battle; the site of a fire. For a long time, the composer Julia Wolfe often walked past the…
Michael Landers, a former national table tennis champion who competed in 2013’s Maccabiah Games, is set to appear in his New York Philharmonic debut on February 20, in Andy Akiho’s concerto “Ricochet.” While the New York Times reports that Landers has perfect pitch and a fondness for bassoon, it his table tennis prowess that will…
There’s a theory that Walt Whitman’s memory rises in public awareness when his ideal of inclusive democracy sinks from view, that it returns us to our faith that all Americans can become parts of the whole. The same might be said of Leonard Bernstein, who was surely the most Whitmanesque figure that America ever gave…
In 1931, New York City honored a French war hero with a ticker-tape parade up Broadway. In 1940, that French war hero became leader of the Vichy regime, which collaborated with the Nazis. In 2017, there’s still a plaque commemorating his parade in the middle of New York City. Now, New York State Assemblyman Dov…
Critics aren’t liable for the headlines the copy desk gives to reviews, so no point chiding The New York Times’s James Oestreich for the burdened praise pinned on a rising Israeli pianist’s recent New York recital: “Inon Barnatan Soldiers Through Hallowed Works.” I winced, because the review itself described a “fascinating and rewarding” evening of…
On January 27, after the New York Philharmonic named Jaap van Zweden as its next music director starting in 2018, an outcry from local journalists and international bloggers decried the decision. One blogger confidently proclaimed: “New York Philharmonic appoints the wrong music director.” These premature judgments based on insufficient evidence ignore the fact that in…
Oscar Schafer, chairman of the board of the New York Philharmonic, and his wife, Didi, pledged to give the institution $25 million. The gift was announced Thursday evening at the Philharmonic’s David Geffen Hall during the opening of the Philharmonic’s 174th season, the New York Times reported. Schafer, founder of the Rivulet Capital private investment…
Earlier this year, Alan Gilbert, music director of the New York Philharmonic, announced that he would step down from his job in 2017. With Avery Fisher Hall, the orchestra’s home, scheduled to close in 2019 for two years of renovation, fevered speculation has ensued about his successor. Music directors should quit more often, as such…
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