Commentary

Arts Commentary: Politics IS Performance — A Director Evaluates the Candidates

February 16, 2020
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Politicians are forced to perform on a massive stage and under the fierce gaze of a thousand lenses, yet few have real skills in that arena.

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YouTube Commentary: “李子柒 Liziqi” — Nature and Internet Celebrity in the Time of the Coronavirus

February 4, 2020
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Not only do Lǐ Zǐqī’s videos offer us the satisfaction of seeing material labor, but they also suggest the impossibility — in the modern world — of genuinely recreating the work of the past.

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Arts Commentary: All Is Not Copacetic for the Fine Arts in the Berkshires

January 30, 2020
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Despite the growing number of artists in the Berkshires, there seems to be an effort, among large cultural institutions and the major media, to pretend that they are not around.

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Arts Remembrance: A Tribute to Poet and Writer John Ash

January 21, 2020
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We were both English-speaking ex-patriots living in Istanbul, and John Ash’s poetry spoke eloquently to that shared experience.

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Music Commentary: New Media, Jazz, and Camille Bertault

January 20, 2020
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Camille Bertault is an uncommon talent. She has a crystalline voice, good intonation, understands the rhythmic and harmonic underpinnings of jazz and has a prodigious memory.

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Music Commentary: Grumbling About The Grammy Awards

January 15, 2020
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After 61 years – and a slew of rule changes and category alterations – the Grammys remain the most philistine of our major shiny statue ceremonies.

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Book Commentary: “La patria y la muerte” — Exposing Mexican “Greatness”

January 10, 2020
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José Luis Trueba Lara’s anti-popularist history is the truest kind of people’s history.

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Arts Commentary: WBUR’s Clogged “ARTery”

December 30, 2019
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Every organization in the Barr Foundation’s charmed circle — large arts groups and The ARTery — have a financial stake in reinforcing the belief that the Barr’s money is being put to supremely successful use.

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Book Review: A Biography of John Berger — A Seminal Artist and Thinker

December 26, 2019
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If you have not read John Berger, by the end of this biography you’re likely to feel an urgent need to pick up one of his books.

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Top Classical Concerts and Recordings of 2019

December 25, 2019
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Classical music continued to thrive, locally and globally, in 2019.

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