Editor’s note: Lou Reed would have turned 79 on March 2, 2021. In honor of him and the upcoming holiday we have republished this piece, which first appeared in March of 2013, about the singer-songwriter’s historic “Downtown Seder.” Lou Reed is standing in front of a room full of Jews on Varick Street on a…
Whatever you think of her views on religion, we can agree that yesterday, evangelical adviser to the president Paula White produced a most prodigious bop. At a prayer service for the reelection of President Trump, the man she won over with her teachings of “Prosperity Theology,” White delivered an impassioned sermon heavy on rhythmic repetition,…
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…
After almost three decades, the Charleston-set “Porgy and Bess” is coming back to the Upper West Side. The Metropolitan Opera’s 2019-2020 season, announced on February 20, will open on September 23 with a new production of Ira and George Gershwin’s folk opera, the first since 1990. The staging, brought over by director James Robinson after…
The selections for this year’s Kennedy Center Honors were announced this morning and, as ever, they’re a who’s who of people it’s hard to imagine otherwise interacting. American Jewish composer Philip Glass is receiving the famous rainbow-banded medal, awarded annually to five artists whose talents have helped shape American culture. Glass is joined in the…
My best memories of summer are of the arts: Catching a B.B. King concert in a Denver August downpour; waiting in the humid heat for a free ticket to “My Fair Lady” at the Muny in St. Louis; spreading a jacket on the beach at Coney Island and watching the riveting and under-recognized “Crown Heights”…
Andy Warhol gave the world many things, among them that iconic Campbell’s soup can, those even more iconic portraits of Marilyn Monroe, an eight-hour film of the Empire State Building from a single perspective and Interview Magazine. As of Monday, that last item, which Warhol founded in 1969, is no more. Employees of the magazine…
Phillip Glass, who turns 80 on Jan 31st, is a man struggling with his legacy, at least how it exists in the popular mind. “If people called me an American opera composer it would have the virtue of being what I actually do”, he told the Guardian yesterday. “This is reality. God forbid we should…
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