Matthew Westphal – Page 1788 – ArtsJournal Wayback

Toronto Symphony Cancels Valentina Lisitsa’s Concerto Gig Over Tweets About Ukraine

The orchestra’s president said that Lisitsa’s contract was bought out due to “ongoing accusations of deeply offensive language by Ukrainian media outlets.” The Kyiv-born, ethnically Russian pianist’s “tweets about the Ukrainian regime have included some harsh comparisons with Nazi Germany, sometimes laced with morbid comedy.” Lisitsa’s outraged fans are fighting back.

Jennifer Higdon’s Opera “Cold Mountain” – A First Preview

David Patrick Stearns visits the Guggenheim Museum for the music’s first public outing, and he talks with the opera’s creators. (Librettist Gene Scheer: “When I wrote [Jake Heggie’s] Moby-Dick, I wasn’t worried about getting e-mails from Herman Melville.”)

Teaching Evolution To Students Who Tell Me They’ll Pray For My Soul

James J. Krupa, biology professor at the University of Kentucky: “Where I live, many believe evolution to be synonymous with atheism, and there are those who strongly feel I am teaching heresy to thousands of students. A local pastor, whom I’ve never met, wrote an article in the University Christian complaining that, not only was I teaching evolution and ignoring creationism, I was teaching it as a non-Christian, alternative religion.”

More Forensic Psychiatry About The Crazed Wife-Murdering Composer

Dr. Ruth McAllister looks at contemporary testimony about Gesualdo and his relationships with others, including his second wife, a rival composer, musicians employed by someone else whom he dressed down to their faces, a former mistress tried for witchcraft, and one of his uncles, St. Carlo Borromeo.

Why Our Presence On Earth Matters

“A cognitive scientist and a German philosopher walk into the woods and come upon a tree in bloom: What does each one see? And why does it matter? While that may sound like the set-up to a joke making the rounds at a philosophy conference, I pose it here sincerely, as a way to explore the implications of two distinct strains of thought – that of cognitive science and that of phenomenology, in particular, the thought of Martin Heidegger, who offers a most compelling vision of the ultimate significance of our being here, and what it means to be fully human.”

Damn Kids Today Don’t Have The Discipline To Succeed In Ballet, Suggests Tamara Rojo

“We live in a society that rewards fast success based on little talent or commitment, which is transient and a dangerous place to be. Do we want to promote instant success and instant failure, or do we want to promote self-esteem and hard work? … I had a strong technique and was hard-working – I trained for six hours, six days a week from the age of 11.”

Baritone Steps In For Plácido Domingo On Half-Hour Notice, Then Does Double-Header

Fortunately, when Luca Salsi got a call Saturday afternoon saying Domingo wasn’t feeling well enough to sing the matinee of Ernani at the Met, he was only nine blocks away from the opera house. On the other hand, he was due to sing Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor that evening.

Watching Matthew Bourne Rehearse ‘The Car Man’

“There is never a sense that Bourne is berating his dancers or psychologically buffeting them into shape, and he certainly is not a shouter. … But although he is a self-effacing presence for much of the time, the dancers are keenly attuned to his gaze; when he does speak to the entire cast, the studio falls silent on the spot.”

Watching A Music Critic Part With His 25,000-Item Record Collection

Star Tribune rock/pop/jazz write Jon Bream kept his giant record vault in a distant corner of the newspaper’s building since 1991. Now that the paper is moving its offices – and now that we’re in the digital age – Bream decided it wasn’t worth schlepping the collection. Here’s what’s happening to it.

Author: Matthew Westphal