Many of the pieces on display in “A Taste for the Renaissance” are very small—bringing a magnifying glass is a good idea. One ...

In 2000, John Adams composed El Niño, which is a telling, or a “reimagining,” of the Nativity. It is an opera-oratorio. And ...

Wayne Thiebaud, Untitled (Six Soda Pop Bottles), ca. 1985, Watercolor on paper, Acquavella Gallery, New York. On view in “Wayne Thiebaud: Summer Days.” Edmund Burke Award Gala honoring Ronald S.

In this episode, Jay begins with a shout—“Carolina Shout,” the classic jazz number by James P. Johnson. There are songs by ...

During the high dudgeon of the Black Lives Matter movement, New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts joined the chorus of handwringers with a particular twist. “In our 60+ year history, we ...

For a few days, it was raining Martinů—Bohuslav Martinů, the Czech composer who lived from 1890 to 1959. I am exaggerating. But we did have two Martinů pieces in close succession, which is rare. The ...

Rob Henderson’s new memoir, Troubled, describes his journey from foster care in rural California to military service in the U.S. Air Force to public intellectual. With degrees from Yale and Cambridge ...

Many people, if they wonder how music is made up, suppose that it consists of a tune and an accompaniment. The paradigmatic guitarist in front of a campfire croons the melody, while his hands create ...

Angelica Kauffman (1741–1807) was one of the most admired, desired, and envied European artists of her day. She now holds a more subtle role in the history of art. Compared to female artists such as ...

Ever since I read Alan Jefferson’s Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (1996), the first and, after three decades, still the only biography of that impeccable vocal artist who for me and so many remains the ...

You don’t even exist!” Characters in Russian fiction are always insulting each other in this way. They call each other zeroes, nothings, nonentities. The hero of Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground ...