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By Bill Marx David Polonsky, Art Director of “Waltz With Bashir.” Recently, the World Books podcast got about as close to Hollywood as it is probably ever going to get. I talk to Israeli artist David Polonsky about the acclaimed animated documentary “Waltz With Bashir,” directed by Ari Folman.
Read MoreBy Caldwell Titcomb Chinese pianist Lang Lang can play the heck out of Chopin. When I first heard Chinese pianist Lang Lang, he was a teenager. He displayed plenty of virtuosity, but without an idea in his head – and the music chosen was not worth anyone’s time. He had begun lessons at three and…
Read MoreBy Bill Marx Soprano Aliana de la Guardia and violinist Gabriela Diaz performing selections of “Kafka Fragments” at a WGBH studio. A recent World Books podcast serves up a literary/musical treat. A Boston company, Ludovoco Ensemble, presented a performance of “Kafka Fragments,” a short chamber work composed by György Kurtág for soprano and violin in…
Read MoreBy Caldwell Titcomb Pianist Angela Hewitt is welcome to visit Boston whenever she chooses. For some years professional musicians in London have been urging me to get acquainted with the pianism of Angela Hewitt. I was finally able to catch up last Sunday when she made her Boston debut at Jordan Hall under the auspices…
Read Moreby Gary Schwartz Albrecht Dürer, Erasmus, 1521 The recently closed exhibition Images of Erasmus at the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam rightly introduced Hieronymus Bosch into Erasmus’s sphere. Here are some unsuspected truths – well, at least possible truths – about the two of them.
Read MoreBy Bill Marx “Five Spice Street” is the second book in the new series the Margellos World Republic of Letters, which features foreign literature in translation. Given all the gloomy publishing news I wanted the podcast to focus on a positive development for books in translations. So in this World Books podcast I talk to…
Read MoreBy J. R. Carroll Violinists are a fortunate lot. Granted, many years of painstaking study and practice are required to master the instrument, but once achieved, that mastery can be taken in almost any direction–or in many directions. As part of what she describes as her “never-ending quest for new vocabulary,” Mimi Rabson has headed…
Read MoreBy Helen Epstein, World Books contributor A Busy Bookstore in Perugia. Last month I was invited to Italy where a university press published my family and social history of Central European Jewish women “Where She Came From.” For 12 days, I traveled from Rome to Trieste to Udine to Milan then Perugia on a book…
Read MoreBy Caldwell Titcomb NEW YORK, NY: Founded in 1971, the Theater Hall of Fame inducted the usual eight new members at a January 26 ceremony in the Gershwin Theatre. Actress Dana Ivey officiated at the 38th annual celebration as Mistress of Ceremonies. Inductees are voted on by the nationwide American Theater Critics Association and living…
Read MoreBy Bill Marx In a recent World Books podcast I talk to Azar Nafisi, the author of the international bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran. In her new memoir, “Things I’ve Been Silent About,” Nafisi chronicles the trials and tribulations of about growing up in Iran, focusing on her volatile relationship with her difficult mother and…
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Music Commentary: A Mystery Solved on the 50th Anniversary of the Release of “Queen II”