An Acerbic Teacher
Last week we lost the playwright Edward Albee, best known for his caustic views of marriage and family relationships, his …
Category Archives: Creativity
The Weary Brow
At our first choral rehearsal of the season, our music director admonished us for eye rolling when requested to sing …
Moneylenders and Merchants
Whenever an opportunity arises to see Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, I leap at it knowing that I will probably find …
Singing Missa
When I told my beloved dissertation advisor and now emeritus professor that my chorus was preparing Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis for …
Of Silk and Worms
You can tell a great deal about a people by looking at what they make and what they eat, at …
Shards of Light
Many years ago as a student in Strasbourg, France, I had many great conversations with Mme. Farès, the middle-aged cleaning …
What does Golde think?
In the newest revival of the beloved musical “Fiddler on the Roof”, currently running on Broadway, Tevye is played with …
Mr. McNally Goes to the Opera
Fans of the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts on Saturday afternoons, and especially the opera quiz, will remember the playwright Terrence …
A Green Table
“And death shall have no dominion”, the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas asserts, paraphrasing St. Paul and making a lyrical case …
Looking to the Linen
In his 1693 treatise A Short View of Tragedy, the English critic Thomas Rymer famously distilled a lesson from Shakespeare’s …
Poets' Sinews 