It was the night after President Trump had officially taken over the Kennedy Center and made himself its chairman, and two well-dressed Washington women were wandering along the plush red carpet inside...
Read moreKen Wydro, a playwright, director and producer who with his wife, Vy Higginsen, poured their life savings into the Off Broadway gospel musical “Mama, I Want to Sing,” an enduring work of...
Read moreLucy Dacus, ‘Best Guess’Lucy Dacus recognizes that love can be precarious in “Best Guess.” She sings, “I love your body, I love your mind/They will change, so will mine.” The tempo is...
Read moreDear listeners,Every once in a while, I like to compile a playlist composed entirely of songs with identical titles. You may recall that, last October, I sent out a newsletter about six...
Read moreThe New York Philharmonic is capable of playing quietly; the orchestra just hasn’t always seemed to enjoy it. Particularly under their last music director, Jaap van Zweden, the musicians tended to approach...
Read morePresident Trump’s takeover of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington has prompted an outcry in the cultural community, with several artists resigning their posts or canceling engagements...
Read moreThere’s a dressing room backstage at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville called “It Takes Two” that’s filled with photos of some of country music’s most famous duos. It’s Michael Trotter Jr....
Read moreYet four years ago, we were invited to behold a more purely arresting portrait of Sly and the Family Stone, from 1969, by this same director, a snapshot, really, in Questlove’s concert...
Read moreDavid Edward Byrd, who captured the swirl and energy of the 1960s and early ’70s by conjuring pinwheels of color with indelible posters for concerts by Jimi Hendrix, the Who and the...
Read moreThe National Endowment for the Arts is telling arts groups not to use federal funds to promote “diversity, equity and inclusion” or “gender ideology” in ways that run afoul of President Trump’s...
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