Last night the American Symphony Orchestra made history – and paid tribute to an important figure in 20th century American music – by presenting a concert at Carnegie Hall entirely devoted to the music of George Crumb. Mr. Crumb, who was born in 1929 in West Virginia, made a big splash on them musical scene in the 1960s and 1970s with such works as "Ancient Voices of Children," "Black Angels" (for amplified string quartet), and … <Read More>
Celebrating Kevin Puts – The 2012 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Music
I was delighted to see the announcement that Kevin Puts will receive the Pulitzer Prize in Music this year for his opera "Silent Night", which premiered at the Minnesota Opera last year. Although I haven't seen or heard this opera, I have become very well acquainted with lots of music by Kevin Puts over the past few years, and I hope that this award will result in many more performances as well as incentivizing some … <Read More>
Jonathan Biss Recital at Peoples’ Symphony Concerts
This afternoon, Jonathan Biss played a piano recital at Town Hall in Manhattan under the auspices of Peoples' Symphony Concerts. This was the last concert of the season on PSC's Festival Series at Town Hall on Sunday afternoons. This year's concerts were all dedicated to commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Marlboro Music Festival by featuring musicians who have participated in Marlboro.
Jonathan Biss began going to Marlboro as a teenager, and has returned in … <Read More>
NY Philharmonic Debuts – Wang & van Zweden
This week conductor Jaap van Zweden made his debut with the New York Philharmonic, and pianist Yuja Wang, who has performed with the orchestra out of town in seasons past, made her Avery Fisher Hall subscription concert debut. On the menu: Prokofiev 3rd Piano Concerto and Mahler 1st Symphony. I just heard the Saturday night performance.
Wang has chops!! She can play this most challenging concerto with technique to spare, but is she ready to … <Read More>
Theater/Concert Overload
I've just come through such a busy time of theater and concerts over the past two weeks that I've fallen far behind in writing about things, so herewith just a few capsule comments on each:
Leap of Faith. I saw a preview of this new musical by Alan Menken (music), Janus Cercone and Warren Leight (book) and Glenn Slater (lyrics), which was conceived as a vehicle for Raul Esparza. My theater-going companion and I are big … <Read More>
Lambda Legal Files Nevada Marriage Lawsuit
Lambda Legal has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Nevada, contending that the state's failure to open up marriage to same-sex couples violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The lawsuit, Sevcik v. Sandoval, Case 2:12-cv-00578, was filed on behalf of eight same-sex couples who reside in Nevada and whose attempts to marry in the state or to get their out-of-state same-sex marriages recognized in the state have been … <Read More>
Federal Court Finds Employee Benefit Plan Must Recognize Transgender Marriage
Chief Judge Michael J. Davis of the U.S. District Court for Minnesota has ruled that a union employee benefit plan that incorporated by reference Minnesota's statutory definition of marriage to determine spousal eligibility may not substitute its own views on whether a marriage between a man and a transgender woman is valid. Finding that Minnesota would treat such a marriage as legally valid, Judge Davis ordered the Plan to reinstate Christine Alisen Radtke as a … <Read More>
The Prop 8 En Banc Petition: Reading Tea Leaves?
While waiting for the two dozen active judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to decide whether to grant en banc review in Perry v. Brown, 671 F.3d 1052 (February 7, 2012), a decision that affirmed on the merits the district court's ruling that California Proposition 8 violates the 14th Amendment by rescinding a previously recognized state constitutional right for same-sex couples to marry without any rational basis, consider the 9th Circuit's … <Read More>
Is Kansas Safe for Dogs?
When you take a look at every new court decision that cites Lawrence v. Texas, which I do in the course of finding cases to discuss on this blog, in my newsletter, Lesbian/Gay Law Notes, and in my role as contributing writer for Gay City News, you sometimes see decisions that might be somewhat outside the boundaries of LGBT law, but are nonetheless quite interesting. My current example, State of Kansas v. … <Read More>
Sybarite5 at 5 Boroughs Music Festival in Brooklyn
Last night, Sunday, April 1, I went to the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music to hear a concert by Sybarite5, a string quintet, performing under the auspices of Five Boroughs Music Festival. They had performed the same concert on Saturday night in Manhattan, but I was at the NY Philharmonic and so, as a dedicated supporter of 5BMF, made the Sunday trek under the river and through the woods….
Sybarite5 consists of a standard string quartet (2 … <Read More>