Musings on ballet, classical music, the violin, and life
If it’s not about classical music, ballet or the violin, you’ll find it here.
Over at Violinist.com, editor Laurie Niles has recently interviewed acclaimed violinist Elmar Oliveira who, in 1978, won the gold medal at the ultra-prestigious Tchaikovsky Competition. (Check out the interview here: http://www.violinist.com/blog/laurie/20134/14574/.) In the years since, Oliveira has continued to thrive, through performing, teaching and recording. His most recent project is a recording of Robert Schumann’s … Read more
The arts world, as well as the larger movie-going world, lost a treasure yesterday. At age seventy, film critic and writer Roger Ebert died. It’s not unlike the feeling I got when the world lost Steve Jobs. It’s a loss that clutches at your emotions, your heart, losing this stranger but not. This genius of … Read more
You stop ballet, you start back up. Life gets in the way. You stop, you start back up. Now here I was in the longest stoppage, ten years, amid an understanding that maybe that was IT for me and ballet. Having a child changes you, changes your body, your priorities, your sense of what you … Read more
In 2006 the L.A. Daily News published an essay I wrote about a troubling bingo night – yes, such a thing can exist – that helped eased the burden of my parent’s soul. There’s both a comfort and a bittersweet charm in rereading it now, with my son being almost fourteen, and not seven. The gist … Read more
“The Inheritance” by Terez Rose Opal chanced upon the violin the day she went searching in the attic for her husband Stan’s gun. The attic was awash in clutter. She waded through it all, stubbing her toe on the Christmas tree stand and knocking over a stack of boxes. And in the end, no gun … Read more