By Karl Baden View Gallery I’ve been spending far too much time in secondhand bookstores. I’ll waste hours in the shelves, looking, mostly without success, for those iconic photo books that I couldn’t afford when I was younger, and now are as rare as hen’s teeth. While prowling the stacks, I began to notice that […]
The Tile Project, Destination: The World
By Mary Sherman View Gallery As the cultural historian Mira Bartok notes, “The great modern architect Stanley Tigerman once said that to him, tiles are both democratic and accessible. The are the essence of what public art has the potential to be – an art form that can be found anywhere in the world by […]
Fuse Concert Review: An Opera Lost in Space
Handel and Haydn Society’s irreverent take on “Dido and Aeneas” is another example of an operatic trend in which production values push musical values to the sidelines
Rock Review: The Music Never Stopped
With the arrival of a new biography and DVD, guitarist Jimi Hendrix may have finally gotten his due, the pieces of his puzzle finally assembled, with just enough mystery left over for the ages. “Room Full of Mirrors: A Biography of Jimi Hendrix” by Charles R. Cross. (Hyperion); “Jimi Hendrix Live at Woodstock [The Deluxe […]
Sympathy for a Terrorist?
Salman Rushdie’s latest novel wants readers to fall in love with — or at least feel sympathy for — an Islamic militant.
Jazz Album Review: Playing the Music Eclectic
For fans of jazz, world music, Americana — in short, for fans of all the genres guitarist Bill Frisell has explored over the past decade — “East/West” is a must. By James Marcus Will the real Bill Frisell please stand up? It’s a question his admirers have been asking with increasing frequency over the past […]
Hot Night in Tanglewood
Don Quixote, Stalin, and a deadbeat 18th century nobleman trigger musical magic at a series of concerts in the Berkshires.
Arts Commentary: Classical Musical Chairs
The controversy over the appointment of a woman to become the conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra boils down to issues of power and gender. By Mark Kroll It’s been a tough year for conductors. In February, David Miller was in southern France conducting “Don Giovanni” with his Bulgarian orchestra when French police burst in […]
Music Review: The Folk Rock Boys
Frank Black of the Pixies and bad boy Ryan Adams have put out new albums that, at their mellow best, skillfully substitute pedal steel for screams. By Danielle Dreilinger The 2005 Newport Folk Festival made an unusual decision when it came time to pick their Saturday headliner: seminal indie-rock band the Pixies, famous for the […]
The Aunties of Uncle Earl
Despite the fame of Alison Krauss, women bluegrass performers have been rare. The arrival of the all-female quintet Uncle Earl suggests things are going to change.