George’s Blog

The Universal Language?

July 24, 2018 George's Blog

Marissa Fessenden penned an article for Smithsonian.com in February 2018 entitled Why Music Is Not A Universal Language in which she cites a video made by Ethen of the Sideways YouTube Channel – a video that is sadly no longer available – hence, I’ve posted no link.  I did watch this video and found it […]

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If You Build It…They May Not Come

June 19, 2018 George's Blog

Picture a brand new performing arts center; the orchestra is tuned and ready to play a magnificent symphony; the lights dim.  But what if there was no audience?  It could happen. Virginia Johnston, The Discovery Orchestra’s Executive Director, and I recently had lunch with a mutual friend who holds a prominent position at Lincoln Center […]

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Cause for Hope

May 21, 2018 George's Blog

There is a significant ray of sunshine out there.  Perhaps the biggest cause for hope regarding the future of classical music revolves around the efforts of one José Antonio Abreu, a Venezuelan musician and educator who died in March 2018, age 78. Dr. Abreu’s brain-child, El Sistema, a publicly financed voluntary music education program founded […]

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Did You Know?

March 20, 2018 George's Blog

We are indeed proud of our digital presence…especially of our four productions distributed by American Public Television (APT).  Bach to the Future, our initial televised Discovery Concert, was recorded at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in the spring of 2002 and broadcast for the first time by public television affiliate WHYY in Philadelphia on […]

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Maestro Bernstein At 100

February 20, 2018 George's Blog

Conductor and educator Leon Botstein penned a thoughtful and substantive article entitled The Legacy of Leonard Bernstein for the Fall 2017 issue of Symphony, the publication of the League of American Orchestras. Noting Bernstein’s great success as a composer, he goes on to say: “The range of Bernstein’s talent was itself astonishing.  Although Bernstein took […]

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The End of Classical Music Criticism?

January 16, 2018 George's Blog

Norman Lebrecht, British commentator on music, culture and author of the classical music blog Slipped Disc, wrote in a post Another US Newspaper Deletes Classical Reviews, “The Hartford Courant has decided not to review the Hartford Symphony any more.”  He went on “This seems to be a growing trend, and some readers are livid.”  What […]

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The Educational Legacy of Bernstein

December 19, 2017 George's Blog

If you were born in the United States before 1965, chances are you viewed at least one of Leonard Bernstein’s fifty-three televised Young People’s Concerts broadcast between 1958 and 1972. Millions of us saw the episodes. How was that made possible? Maestro Bernstein convinced CBS TV Network to broadcast. This was not a niche cable […]

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Angels Unawares

November 21, 2017 George's Blog

It gave this nine-year-old choirboy a lot to think about. “Were there really angels showing up disguised as regular folks?” “Could they eat pizza and drink coke like the rest of us?”  “How did they talk?” While I cannot presume to literally know what the author’s intentions were, over the years of my own life […]

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Intentional Acts of Kindness

October 16, 2017 George's Blog

Random acts of kindness are indeed wonderful events. You know the situation…you get up to the register in the restaurant to pay your bill and the cashier, gesturing, says: “A person who was sitting over there paid your tab already.”  “What!” you exclaim.  But before you can find the individual – they’re gone. You may […]

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Goosebumps City

September 19, 2017 George's Blog

Back in July Katherine Ellen Foley, a health and science reporter for Quartz wrote a wonderful article detailing the research and thoughts of Matthew Sachs, a grad student at the University of Southern California.  Her article, with the headline: The chills we get from listening to music are a biological reaction to surprise  definitely caught […]

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