NY Times: “Is Music the Key to Success?”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/opinion/sunday/is-music-the-key-to-success.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1& A good portion of this opinion piece focuses on how music study fueled high-profile careers, (by and large) outside the arts arena. The writer, Joanne Lipman, is author of Strings Attached..., non-fiction that reads like a novel and honors a task master H.S. music teacher who endured a life of hardship. No doubt the…

After the Revolution is my cousin, Amy Herzog’s tour de force play. (An Aurora Theatre Berkeley production)

Amy Herzog is regaled as one of the most gifted young playwrights of her generation. Not only has she been a recipient of the well-regarded Lillian Hellman prize, but she's amassed a slew of New York Times rave reviews. Charles Isherwood, Arts editor, lauded After the Revolution in a generous media spread that wove in…

A NY Times article on landfills of discarded pianos is thought-provoking

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/arts/music/for-more-pianos-last-note-is-thud-in-the-dump.html?pagewanted=2#59;ref=arts&_r=4&adxnnlx=1343746997-So2LFy3bwlbB06xhRqMQ%2FQ I read reams of comments attached to this article, and most who'd posted were emotionally devastated by a graphic slide show of grand piano dismemberment, pulverization and landfill-dumping. It amounted to an unmarked grave, or even worse, since the dust pile would be untraceable over years. A principle at Faust-Harrison, a high-profile piano dealer…

Murray Perahia, pianist, is in a league of his own! (Videos)

Okay, so I borrowed a snatch from a movie title about a woman's baseball team keeping the diamond percolating with energy during World War II. And Geena Davis did a superb job as the lead, but in all honesty, Murray Perahia does one up on her at the piano. His playing field encompasses 88 keys…