This is the first in a series of pages in which in one of our critics, working with a young person, comes up with an arts review.
Music Preview: Music as Metaphor — A Far Cry, a Physicist, and a Composer Reflect on “Gravity”
The music swelled as the early universe spun …
Poetry Review: “Casting Deep Shade” — On Humanity and the Beech Tree
C.D. Wright has woven a poetic text that mirrors the tangled intimacy between humans and the beech, in all of its violence, its confusion, and its beauty.
Poetry Review: Poems, Not Artifacts — “New Poets of Native Nations” and a “Poets Playlist” at the Peabody
Editor Heidi E. Erdrich has brought together a richly varied selection of poems, chosen from first collections of poetry written by twenty-one Native poets since the year 2000.
Poetry Review: “Pan Tadeusz: The Last Foray in Lithuania” — A Playful Polish Epic
In his exhilarating translation of Pan Tadeusz, Bill Johnston captures Adam Mickiewicz’s wild fluctuations of register and brilliant associative riffs. The volume recently won the 2019 National Translation Award in Poetry.
Reflections and Echoes: Colin Carr Plays the Complete Bach Cello Suites
Overall, this was classy cello playing. Colin Carr relied on, and brought out, the inherent architecture of the Bach suites.
Concert Review: A Healing Space — A Far Cry and the Miró Quartet Present “Loss and Resurrection”
This is a sound I’ve never heard before at a chamber concert: over twenty musicians breathing in unison.
Concert Review: The Verona Quartet Takes on Shostakovich, Haydn, and Brahms
The Verona Quartet is certainly worth watching, above all for the intimate way in which they communicate with each other and with the audience.