The John Cage Song Books – A U.S. Premiere by “Alarm Will Sound”

Last night, the "hot" new music group "Alarm Will Sound" presented a staged version of selections from "Song Books" by John Cage, as part of the River-to-River Festival of arts events in lower Manhattan that has become a prominent early-summer feature of the New York City cultural scene in recent years.  The program described this as a U.S. premiere.  The production was co-commissioned by the Holland Festival and the River-to-River Festival, and took place at … <Read More>

Comments on a selection of summer films…. June/July 2012

The onslaught of "summer films" has begun, and I've attended several over the past few weeks, including "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter," "Moonrise Kingdom," "The Amazing Spiderman," and "To Rome With Love."  Actually, "To Rome," the Woody Allen piece, is not specifically a summertime movie; it just coincidentally got released.  But the others name above certainly fit the genre – more focused on entertainment than any sort of social commentary.  Of the entire lot, I liked … <Read More>

One Man, Two Guvnors at the Music Box Theatre on Broadway

Last week I attended a performance of the new Broadway hit, "One Man, Two Guvnors" by Richard Bean.  James Corden stars as the servant of two masters in this modern-day adaptation of Carlo Goldoni's old farce, "The Servant of Two Masters."  Nicholas Hytner directs this British import, which strives to present the feeling of attending an old-fashioned vaudeville.  The action is set in the 1960s, and so there are interpolated musical numbers by a 1960s … <Read More>

The NY Philharmonic’s Little Tchaikovsky Festival

The New York Philharmonic titled the second program in their short Summertime Classics series "Tchaikovsky Festival."  One program hardly constitutes a "festival," in my view, but the program turned out to be much more varied and exciting than one might have anticipated from a monolithic focus on one late-19th century Russian romantic composer, because it mixed seldom-played with more popular fare in excellent performances led by Bramwell Tovey, music director of the Vancouver Symphony who … <Read More>

Arizona Seeks Supreme Court Review of Domestic Partner Benefits Case

Arizona has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review the 9th Circuit's decision in Diaz v. Brewer, 656 F.3d 1008 (2011), petition for rehearing en banc denied, 676 F.3d 823 (2012), in which the circuit court upheld a preliminary injunction that District Judge John W. Sedwick had issued to prevent same-sex partners of Arizona state employees from losing their domestic partnership health benefits.  Channeling the arguments that 9th Circuit Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain made in … <Read More>

N.Y. Appellate Division Rejects Challenge to Marriage Equality Law

On July 6, 2012, a unanimous panel of the New York Appellate Division, 4th Department, rejected a challenge to the validity of the New York Marriage Equality Law, which was enacted on June 24, 2011.  New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms v. New York State Senate, No. CA 12-00313, Opinion 644.

Opponents of the Marriage Equality Act (MEA) sued for a declaration that the law was not validly enacted because (1) the Republican caucus of the Senate … <Read More>

The New York Philharmonic’s “Armory Show”

On June 29, 2012, I attended the first presentation of the New York Philharmonic's Armory Show!  This was the 15,398th concert by the NYP, according to the program book.  Alan Gilbert's desire to perform Karlheinz Stockhausen's "Gruppen" for Three Orchestras in an appropriate spacial setting was the motivation for this concert.  Since "Gruppen" by itself is not long enough for a concert, he assembled a program with two other works calling for dispersion of orchestral forces … <Read More>

Counting the Votes on the Supreme Court’s Health Care Decision

Most of the reporting on the Supreme Court's ruling this morning in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, No. 11-393 (June 28, 2012), naturally focuses on the immediate bottom line: The Court, by a vote of 5-4, upheld the "individual mandate" provision under which all adults are supposed to have health insurance, and many of those who don't purchase it (and don't have it under some group plan) will have to pay a penalty … <Read More>