Year: 2011
My Nine Lives reads like a conversation with a man who has worked through more than his share of ups and downs in the world of classical music. The tone is understated and graceful; his narrative could easily have faltered in less skillful hands. Pianist Leon Fleisher aims for a general readership. It’s a very…
Read MoreD.W. Jacobs’s presentation of the life and ideas of American visionary R. Buckminster Fuller invites you to make your own intellectual structure out of what you have seen—connect Fuller’s dots and you have an image that expands your mental horizons or at the very least ups your powers of analysis and recall. R. Buckminster Fuller:…
Read MorePianist Jeremy Denk says, “Being a musician can be very solitary and a bit navel-gazing (like blogging). I’m not sure that blogging made me saner, but it surely released a valve somewhere.” By Susan Miron Pianist Jeremy Denk will be tackling one of the year’s most challenging programs this Sunday at 1:30 p.m. at MassArt…
Read MoreA novel of echoes, reflections (sometimes inverted), and criss-crossing lines, Lance Olsen’s Calendar of Regrets locates nodes of intersection, spotlights the forgotten, and magnifies the unnoticed. Calendar of Regrets by Lance Olsen. Fiction Collective, 456 pages, $22. By Vincent Czyz Lance Olsen’s Calendar of Regrets had me from the opening scene: a vividly imagined and…
Read MoreThe only thing more unforgettable than this sung story of woe was the eloquent singing of Lynn Torgove. Vaughan Williams could have hoped for no better singer or instrumental ensemble. The Cantata Singers. At Jordan Hall, 30 Gainsborough Street, Boston, MA, January 14. By Susan Miron The history of British classical music is a strange…
Read MoreIt’s very difficult to lure new audiences into the concert hall in most parts of the United States, hard to find useful introductions to pieces of classical music and hard to judge from the reaction of UnderScore concertgoers whether they were pleased with their experience. I applaud the BSO’s initiative. UnderScore Friday. Presented by the…
Read MoreThis musical/dance hybrid portrays Afrobeat originator Fela as a master entertainer and political agitator, an evening of terrific dance numbers nimbly performed and wonderful music played by first-rate musicians that ends on a suitably somber acceptance that with high flying dreams of freedom come bottom line responsibilities. FELA! Book by Jim Lewis and Bill T.…
Read MoreAuthor and Arts Fuse Contributor Helen Epstein explains why she decided to take her 1994 biography Joe Papp: An American Life and convert it into an eBook—given what may be the precarious future for the traditional book, she “wanted to save it for posterity.” By Helen Epstein. AF: Joe Papp died in 1991. Why publish…
Read MoreSince its debut, the play Hysteria has been advertised as “in the comic tradition of Tom Stoppard,” blithely blending fact and fantasy, real life people and fictional characters into frothy fun. Unfortunately, Johnson is no Stoppard. Hysteria or Fragments of an Analysis of an Obsessional Neurosis by Terry Johnson. Directed by Daniel Gidron. Presented by…
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Arts Commentary: With Friends Like These — The New York Times Explains Why Criticism Matters
The important question the NYTBR Editors fail to ask is whether the traditional definition and values of literary criticism will survive in an age of ebooks and iPads. Is there a primal appetite for criticism? (Edith Wharton says there is, and I believe her.) How will the Internet shape our innate desire to compare, judge,…
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