By now, the figure of Julius Eastman needs little introduction—though this was not always the case. Active as a performer and composer in many corners of the eclectic, sometimes contentiously fragmented landscape of late 20th-century American music, Eastman carved a singular path, adjacent to many worlds yet beholden to none. His music can shock as […]
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Breathing Room
The 24-year-old conductor Aurel Dawidiuk is Associate Conductor with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. Recently, I spoke with him about the right repertoire at the right time, facing your insecurities in front of an orchestra, and why he didn’t become a soccer goalkeeper. VAN: I read that you’ve wanted to be a conductor since […]
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13 Ways of Looking at “Sheep May Safely Graze”
I: A NON SEQUITUR It’s March, and the wind is whirling, swaying oaks and hickories in the park where I’ve brought my five-year-old son to play. Dashiell picks up a fallen tree branch from the grass and makes it his staff. Today he is a shepherd, guiding me along paths that bend around a man-made […]
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The Sounds of Smiling
When I’m anxious, I calm myself by listening to Satie’s “Gymnopedies.” When I’m looking to focus, I turn on András Schiff’s rendition of “The Well-Tempered Clavier.” Lately, I’ve been looking to escape the tumult of life in Trump’s America—can it only be April?—longing for a simpler time. And so I’ve found my way back to […]
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History from the Bell Tower
The gargoyles wore beards of ice. Mary Clark noticed this detail through the early evening darkness as she pulled into a parking spot against the Cathedral close in January. The 82-year-old wondered how treacherous the sidewalks would be, particularly with the extra load of provisions she was carrying. The sandwiches and chips that she would […]
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These Are The Top Republican Donors Also Donating To Classical Music
In May 2020, when George Floyd was murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis, many American classical music institutions joined what appeared to be a society-wide reckoning on racism. The Minnesota Orchestra commissioned a work in Floyd’s memory, by composer Carlos Simon and librettist Marc Bamuthi, called “brea(d)th.” The Chicago Symphony Orchestra shared sobering […]
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James Smidt Checks His Watch
Dressed in a black and gold silk Versace loungewear set, with giant Louis Vuitton sunglasses sliding down the brim of his nose, James Smidt sipped his second Manhattan as we chatted at the rooftop bar of The Empire Hotel in Lincoln Center. I asked him to describe his own aesthetic. “Cunt. Tastemaker, epochal artistic mover […]
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The Traveling Breath
A woman with narrow shoulders and long grey hair steps up to the microphone. In the bluish stage light, she looks pensive and fragile. Which makes the power of her voice all the more surprising as she releases an astonishing variety of sounds into the hall: humming, whirring, sighing; clacking glottal stops, throaty chirps, nasal […]
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Learning Culture
Brendan Slocumb’s goal is to be the “Stephen King of musical mysteries.” In the last three years, he has published three mystery novels with Penguin Random House: The Violin Conspiracy (2022), Symphony of Secrets (2023), and The Dark Maestro (forthcoming in May). The protagonists of all three novels are classical musicians, and all three plots […]
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Wrangling, Plunging
Beginning with Stockhausen on April 6, “20th Century Radicals” is a new 40-part series about the composers who shaped the previous century. Over the course of 40 weekly episodes, it covers Andriessen and Berio through to Xenakis and La Monte Young, via El-Dabh, Jolas, Murail and Takahashi, and many more. It’s the sort of series […]