He is the author of From Ear to Ear: A Pianist’s Love Affair with Song and the co-founder and artistic director of the New York Festival of Song, esteemed for its rethinking of material, its surprising permutations and combinations—which makes it sound like a weapons lab, and it kind of is, culturally. Plus singer Nicoletta Berry and … Continue reading »
“Eye surgery now is so marvelous,” says this ophthalmologist. “I’m amazed.” At age 97, he’s one of the innovators who made it amazing, and he found time to go out for beers with Wernher von Braun and perform Shakespeare (not simultaneously). Produced with New York’s Amateur Comedy Club with the sponsorship of Thomas Campbell Jackson. Continue reading »
Her father, Leonard Bernstein, thought “that if he could write a good enough song, maybe he could stop war.” Not insane, aspiring. “It’s ridiculously idealistic, but that was his impetus.” Tales of a famous father. Presented with The Village Trip, whose annual festival begins September 19. Continue reading »
“Isaac Bashevis Singer called my mother the Sherlock Holmes of Yiddish songs,” says Zalmen. His family heritage and Steven’s splendid singing were big factors in the triumph of Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish. Presented by the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. Continue reading »
Dean of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and a staff writer for The New Yorker, he says, “When people ask what I think is the foundational institution of democracy, I always say: ‘the public library.’” Enjoy it while we’ve got it. And what’s left of our democracy. Continue reading »
He wrote Ken Russell’s Women in Love, geeze, 50 years ago, then wrote plays (The Normal Heart) and novels (Faggots). Amidst the emerging AIDS epidemic, he helped found the Gay Men’s Health Crisis and Act Up. Accomplished, right? Not according to him. “I feel like I failed,” he says. A life examined. Continue reading »