Yes, it's Barack Obama's birthday, but it's also William Schuman's, and there was a time when that would have been a pretty big deal.
As John Clare reminded us on his blog, Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic celebrated Schuman's 50th birthday in 1960, opening their October 13-16 shows with his Symphony No. 3.
Two years later, as Schuman began his tenure as president of Lincoln Center (he was previously president of the Juilliard School), he appeared on What's My Line?
On Flack Me , Jeannine Wheeler profiles the man who started it all for PR people, Ivy Lee : "Tell the truth," he said, "because sooner or later the public will find out anyway. And if the public doesn’t like what you are doing, change your policies and bring them into line with what people want.” Apparently, this was groundbreaking advice back in the early decades of the 20th century, and Lee became very wealthy counseling some of the most famous industrialists of the time. Famously, he came under fire from Upton Sinclair while representing the Rockefellers during the Ludlow Massacre of 1914-15 in Colorado. It's this contradiction--using the values your mother taught you to help people involved in dubious activities (to put it charitably) come away looking good to their constituents and the public--that makes public relations among the most stressful jobs around .
From Mark Swed's review of Yuja Wang's performance at the Hollywood Bowl last Tuesday: Dressed in a strapless, snug, sparkling gown with a black zipper down her back Tuesday night, Yuja Wang has clearly become the belle of the Bowl. Ever since her Hollywood Bowl debut four years ago wearing a short skirt that became a fashion statement, in classical music circles at any rate, audiences expect that the 28-year-old Chinese pianist will be a dazzling presence the moment she walks on stage. Hi-def Bowl monitors help. F rom his 2011 review of Yuja Wang with the Los Angeles Philharmonic : Her dress Tuesday was so short and tight that had there been any less of it, the Bowl might have been forced to restrict admission to any music lover under 18 not accompanied by an adult. Had her heels been any higher, walking, to say nothing of her sensitive pedaling, would have been unfeasible. The infernal helicopters that brazenly buzz the Bowl seemed, on this night, like long-necked p...
On Monday, Russell Sherman is performing all of Schoenberg's piano music in a recital at the Mannes School Concert Hall in Manhattan, the opening concert in the annual Festival for Contemporary Performance . Sherman's personal link to Schoenberg is his teacher Edward Steuermann. More than just a student of Schoenberg, Steuerman was the composer's go-to pianist in Berlin and Vienna. Here in the US, Steuermann premiered the Piano Concerto in 1944 with the NBC Orchestra and Leopold Stokowski. (Originally, Schnabel was the scheduled pianist, which may have offended Steuermann.) Despite this close connection to Schoenberg, Steuermann taught very little Schoenberg to his students, according to Sherman. Here he is in an interview with Gunther Schuller: "Well, he hardly taught me any modern music, and even Schoenberg he wasn't much interested in teaching. But he used to say--in that Polish way--'That's your music. You do what you want with it; I don't ha...