Tag: MusicPage 3 of 3
When I was young my father, knowing of my interest in music and war, gave me a book entitled Singing the Vietnam Blues: Songs of the Air Force…
Thomas J. Scherer describes two related encounters which speak to the power of hearing poetry performed aloud. The first is an explanatory talk and poetry reading by the…
In this account, William E. Leuchtenburg shares the story of a seemingly routine exchange with literary scholars in the late 1970s which spurred him to new insights about…
Fresh out of graduate school, Jon Parrish Peede embraced the chance to travel, arriving in Eastern Europe during the dissolution of Czechoslovakia. A last-minute decision to see the…
Some years ago, I was asked to give a lecture to students enrolled in a small university’s humanities program describing the personal epiphany I experienced which led to…
Some would say music is the most powerful of the arts. The album To Pimp A Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar is just that, powerful. The overall theme of…
Juan Felipe Herrera, a performance artist, activist, and U.S. poet laureate in 2015, recalls how his third-grade teacher’s compliment on his singing voice led to his lifelong belief…
David Denby discusses hearing Herbert von Karajan conducting a performance of Mahler’s 9th Symphony—a moment which made him realize the power of music as a universal language. –…
Have we lost the metaphysical? And how do we regain it? – David Denby (Author, Journalist, Film Critic)
Averill Corkin describes the moment she decided to major in the humanities after seeing a video performance of the song “Du måste finnas” (“You Have to Be There”),…
According to the ancient Greeks, harmony is discord rendered concordant, a concept that applied not just to music but everything from the order of the cosmos to human…
In June 2017, I found myself in a cramped, sweltering apartment in New York’s East Village. I was there with three high-school students to interview William Millan, founder…
It was our first real date. His blind date had backed out and I volunteered to hear Rostropovich’s debut in Washington to play the Dvořák. It was not…
At the age of 74, I could describe many humanities moments but this one stands out. Sometime in 1961, my brother was driving me home when I first…
When I was in elementary school I didn’t know anything about racial conflict or even recognize there were racial differences between the kids at my school. My classmates…
I was around seven years old. My dad and I were in the car when the song came on. “My Front Porch Looking In” by the band Lonestar…
I am not a churchgoer or a believer, and thus, I have always been left with questions about the deeper meaning of life that could not be easily…
Due to the oil and gas industry plummeting in 2016, my dad lost his job that he had for over 30 years, right before I was about to…
When I was a senior in high school, one of my friend’s passed away from a tragic accident. My friend and I decided to attend the funeral together…