What Shouldn’t Change About Classical Music
The New York Times
Our chief classical music critic bids farewell with some thoughts about what should be preserved in the field he’s covered for decades.
For more than three decades as a critic, I’ve shared my passion for classical music. I’ve also expressed frustrations with the field. Of all the performing arts, mine has been the most conservative, the most stuck in a core repertory of works from the distant past.
Major orchestras and opera companies must make fostering relationships with living composers a top priority, and work harder to empower female and minority artists. Institutions need to find more effective ways to connect with their diverse communities. If this means modifying — even tossing out — old models for presenting music, like the increasingly obsolete subscription series format that’s routine at most orchestras, so be it.
Yet, especially after 18 perilous months when this art form seemed in danger of disappearing altogether, I love it more than ever. I want to protect it, as well as shake it up.
Since breaking out in “Atlanta,” the actor has become a dependable Hollywood side man. In “Dope Thief,” a new crime drama, he will finally take the lead.
The best-selling bard of female anxiety rakes over some middle school memories while visiting the city where she grew up.
From a low-slung building in Montana, employees process sex abuse complaints against the music mogul that have been drawn to them through advertising and a viral hotline.
A production partly aimed at students that highlights Tampa’s history in the civil rights movement lands at a time when the state is changing what schools teach about race and history.
Minnesota’s high school hockey tournament is a fashion show of mullets, perms and bleach. With his “All Hockey Hair Team,” John King chronicles the lettuce and flow.
Enter the era of the power curve with Alaïa, Schiaparelli and Chloé.
For all the repellent narcissism of its members, the family of HBO’s “The Righteous Gemstones” has been a deeply humanizing example of evangelical Christian faith.
The latest Tom Ford collection makes a strong case for them.
Anne Imhof’s three-hour spectacle of moody youth at the Armory is sweet sorrow, full of moping and muttering. Still, almost despite itself, it points to true art.
In Bong Joon Ho’s latest dystopian romp, Robert Pattinson plays a hapless underdog whose work aboard a spaceship requires him to die, over and over.
But is this really a “Barbie” moment?
Chad Kassem is on a mission — saving listeners “from bad sound” — at the rural factory where he pores over LPs from some of music’s most important artists.
Charisma, positivity and warmth are traits that fans attribute to the color, which has been on the ascent.