A New Initiative In Public Cultural Discourse

This Wednesday, in partnership with the Aspen Music Festival, ArtsJournal will host a new 10-day blog – Critical Conversation – featuring a dozen of the best classical music critics in America. They will discuss whether or not it is still possible for a Big Idea to animate classical music. Our bloggers include: Alex Ross from the New Yorker, Kyle Gann from the Village Voice, Justin Davidson from Newsday, Scott Cantrell from the Dallas Morning News, Charles Ward from the Houston Chronicle, Wynne Delacoma from the Chicago Sun-Times, Andrew Druckenbrod from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Kyle MacMillan from the Denver Post, John Rockwell from the New York Times, and John von Rhein from the Chicago Tribune. Then, on August 7 in Aspen, Greg Sandow of the Wall Street Journal, Anne Midgette of the New York Times, David Patrick Stearns of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Joshua Kosman of the San Francisco Chronicle will participate in a live discussion of the topic, moderated by ArtsJournal editor and founder Douglas McLennan. That event is free and open to the public. This is a new initiative in public cultural discourse, the first of what we hope will be a series of such events.