Feeling Gezelligheid on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, December 2012

With the exception of maybe Bruce Springsteen, there is no musician I enjoy seeing live more than Andrew Bird, whom I’ve been fortunate enough to see play at least a half-dozen times over the past ten years throughout New York City. Each performance is a real show for the senses— attendees are not only treated …

Re-thinking Convention and Innovation

The end of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) defies the conventions of film endings. After the credits are over, the music has stopped, and the screen has faded to darkness, we are suddenly confronted with an interior shot of Ferris Bueller’s (Matthew Broderick) home. Is this the start of a new movie? Did the film’s editors make a mistake and forget to remove some material from the final product?

Bespoke Opera: Handel, Fach, and Gender

By: Andrew Dell’Antonio (University of Texas at Austin) // Twenty-first century opera singers obtain—and train for—principal roles in “warhorse” works worldwide according to a system of voice-types, widely known as the “fach” system (using a German word that means “classification”). Casting directors, teachers, and the stars themselves have become accustomed to linking singers to roles …

Handel’s Messiah: A Seeming Miracle Itself

By: Ellen T. Harris (MIT) // The following excerpt focuses on two of Handel’s most famous oratorios, Israel in Egypt and Messiah, considering the political and religious context of their composition and the impact of their music. Oratorios are dramatic compositions, usually set to religious, and often Biblical, texts, as is the case here, and …