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We got word yesterday that a major snowstorm was headed our way. It would certainly make the city a slushy mess, and these storms are usually even more severe in Westchester. By lunchtime yesterday, Katonah hadn’t completely recovered from the previous Friday’s...
A few years ago I got a request from the administration at Caramoor to add a fifth artist to the Vocal Rising Stars program: an apprentice pianist. I turned this over in my mind for a while, considering the pros and cons of sharing accompanying duties with yet another...
Today marked the beginning of the tenth season of NYFOS@Caramoor, aka the Vocal Rising Stars Program. Our annual retreat to Caramoor for this residency is a highlight of my year. The unfailing warmth of the people who work there, the calm of the environment, and the...
It was just three days after the last election, and I was booked for lunch with my colleague Mary Birnbaum. Our one agenda item was the NYFOS@Juilliard concert in the early spring. Mary showed up looking as if she’d come from a funeral. I’d never seen her in such a...
The last time I saw Hello, Dolly! I was twelve years old, and Carol Channing played Dolly. On the way out of the theater—no, it must have been later, at Sam Goody’s where its $4.95 price tag would have come down a whole dollar—my mother bought the original cast album...
I first met John Corigliano 41 years ago over dinner at a restaurant in Greenwich Village. I was a rather shy young guy, and I was out with some very worldly people, all of them friends of long standing, and all of them about fifteen years my senior. I'm not sure I...