There are beings that are just too special for this world. They arrive, fully-formed, on the messy little stage of your life and immediately dazzle you with their stunning beauty and charisma and goodness. They capture your heart so completely that you are always a little fearful that something this perfect cannot last. Howard arrived in our household eight years ago, at a time when we were still mourning the loss of a previous companion. By the second day, previous cats were forgotten. He seemed to have two speeds—full and stop—careening around our apartment and crashing into furniture like a

The NEA has announced its plans for the funding it got in the stimulus bill, and the elligibility guidelines make a lot of sense.  Back in early February when the bill was going through congress I expressed concern about whether the NEA would use the funding in a deliberately stimulative way, and, as the Magic 8 Ball would say, “signs point to yes.” According to the NEA website: Projects are limited to: Salary support, full or partial, for one or more positions that are critical to an organization’s artistic mission and that are in jeopardy or have been eliminated as

The festivities continue at the newly reopened Alice Tully Hall tonight, with a concert they’re calling “New York, New Music, New Hall.” The evening gets underway with a preshow at 5:30 in the outer lobby where ETHEL will play a piece called Space by Phil Kline.  The sold-out main event starts at 7:00 and features a smorgasbord of performances by Alarm Will Sound, the Bang On A Can All-Stars (with special guest Glenn Kotche of Wilco), and Steve Reich and Musicians with Synergy Vocals.  AWS is playing music by Derek Bermel, Oscar Bianchi, and Caleb Burhans.  The All-Stars are playing

Anybody know a good classical or new music video blogger?   I may have a pretty neat gig for them. Send me a note or leave a note below.   sequenza21@gmail.com

The LA Times had an encouraging piece a few days ago about the Obama family’s interest in the non-pop arts (thanks to Alex Ross for the link).  Apparently the Obamas recently attended an Alvin Ailey performance at the Kennedy Center, and the First Family has a long history of participation in, and patronage of, dance, classical music, museums, etc.  The article, however, is chock full of some appaling elitism.  Let’s take a look.

Would be in record stores on March 3 if there were such a thing as record stores.  Available here. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxKqg0Fwsro[/youtube]

Some enterprising folks have put together an updatable master list of artists, musicians and bands on Twitter. (Yes, now you too can tell Jimmy Eat World what you had for breakfast).  Why don’t one of you geeky types with some time on your hands rush over to Google Docs and create a spread sheet where Composers, Real Musicians (like the ones who read S21) and fellow travelers can add their Twitter addresses.  We’ll do a link

If you tend to enjoy “litterchur” as well as classical music, you also tend to become aware that authors such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Ezra Pound, and Paul Bowles were intermittently serious about composing music. One I did not know about, but was brought to our attention in an email received today, was Anthony Burgess. Always to be known best for his — by no means favorite — novel A Clockwork Orange, Burgess composed more than 175 works, as well as a few opera libretti. Which brings us to the Harry Ransom Center, an artistic and cultural archive at the University of Texas