Reads tagged with “music”

Thrush Song: A Stunning Harmonic Tribute to Rachel Carson’s Courage by Composer Paola Prestini and the Young People’s Chorus of New York City

“All the loveliness that is in nature came to me with such a surge of deep happiness.”

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One Fine Day: David Byrne Performs His Hymn of Optimism and Countercultural Anthem of Resistance and Resilience with the Brooklyn Youth Chorus

“I complete my tasks, one by one. I remove my masks, when I am done…”

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Kierkegaard on the Spiritual and Sensual Power of Music, the Essence of Genius, and the Key to a Timeless Work of Art

“If Mozart ever became wholly comprehensible to me, he would for the first time become wholly incomprehensible to me.”

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Favorite Books of 2019

From the hidden universe beneath our feet to delight as a countercultural force of courage and resistance, by way of Patti Smith, Toni Morrison, and the Greek myths.

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How to Find Your Artistic Voice: Ben Folds on Empathy, Creativity, and the Courage to Know Yourself

“What an artist has to offer is obvious to just about anyone else but the artist him- or herself.”

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Nothing Is Fixed: James Baldwin on Keeping the Light Alive Amid the Entropic Darkness of Being, Set to Music

“The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.”

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Love Beyond Label: Lisel Mueller’s Tender Poem About the Lush, Unclassifiable Bond Between Johannes Brahms and Clara Schumann

A lovely antidote to “the rude, irrelevant question of our age,” the hollow assumption that “the event of two bodies meshing together establishes the degree of love.”

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Bach and the Cosmos of Belonging: Michael Pollan on How the Transcendent Power of Music Allays the Loneliness of Being and the Ache of Regret

“Opened to the music, I became first the strings… and then the breeze of sound flowing past as it crossed the lips of the instrument and went out to meet the world, beginning its lonely transit of the universe.”

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The Shape of Music: Maurice Sendak’s Insightful Forgotten Meditation on Fantasy, Feeling, and the Key to Great Storytelling

“Fantasy and feeling lie deeper than words… and both demand a more profound, more biological expression, the primitive expression of music.”

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There Are Infinitely Many Kinds of Beautiful Lives: A Reading from “Figuring” Accompanied by Yo-Yo Ma, Benefitting Refugee Children

A reading from “Figuring” with original music by Yo-Yo Ma, a stunning rendition of the 19-century parlor song “Beautiful Dreamer” by Esperanza Spalding, and a family of friends speaking out against injustice in the universal language of sympathy.

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Reads tagged with “music”

“All the loveliness that is in nature came to me with such a surge of deep happiness.”

“I complete my tasks, one by one. I remove my masks, when I am done…”

“If Mozart ever became wholly comprehensible to me, he would for the first time become wholly incomprehensible to me.”

From the hidden universe beneath our feet to delight as a countercultural force of courage and resistance, by way of Patti Smith, Toni Morrison, and the Greek myths.

“What an artist has to offer is obvious to just about anyone else but the artist him- or herself.”

“The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.”

A lovely antidote to “the rude, irrelevant question of our age,” the hollow assumption that “the event of two bodies meshing together establishes the degree of love.”

“Opened to the music, I became first the strings… and then the breeze of sound flowing past as it crossed the lips of the instrument and went out to meet the world, beginning its lonely transit of the universe.”

“Fantasy and feeling lie deeper than words… and both demand a more profound, more biological expression, the primitive expression of music.”

A reading from “Figuring” with original music by Yo-Yo Ma, a stunning rendition of the 19-century parlor song “Beautiful Dreamer” by Esperanza Spalding, and a family of friends speaking out against injustice in the universal language of sympathy.

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