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Boston Globe
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
At Aston Magna, Thomas Jefferson's favorite tunes and Baroque music by modern 30-somethings
Rembrandt Peale, "Thomas Jefferson," 1805. Oil on linen. New-York Historical Society In a phone interview, Stepner called Jefferson's music library 'quite remarkable for its breadth and depth.' He collected popular songs, piano-vocal scores for operas, musical method books, and 'quite a lot' of chamber music. His wife, Martha, was a 'serious amateur' keyboard player and they often played together. 'His wedding gift to her was going to be a harpsichord, and then he heard about this new-fangled thing called a fortepiano,' Stepner said with a chuckle. 'He canceled the harpsichord order and got her a fortepiano instead!' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The library itself is a microcosm of the wider musical world at the time, and there was a 'huge selection of pieces' to choose from in crafting the program with soprano Kristen Watson, said Stepner. 'There's Geminiani, there's popular music of the day. … There's Haydn, Purcell, Mozart.' Advertisement But two names on the program might be more familiar to American history buffs than musicians. There are two songs by Francis Hopkinson, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and lawyer who also considered himself 'the first serious American composer,' Stepner said. The program also features music by Italian-English painter and composer Maria Cosway, who may have had a brief romantic affair with Jefferson when he was serving as ambassador to France in the late 1780s and exchanged letters with him for the rest of his life. Stepner, who has been the festival's artistic director since 1991, also curated a program focusing on late Mozart, which he said was his personal favorite this year (July 17 and 19). 'Mozart is more and more satisfying to play as I get older,' he said. In addition, he mustered an intergenerational lineup of soloists for the season finale, 'Four Fiddlers' (July 31 and Aug. 3). Each violinist will carry the virtuosic solos in one of Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons,' with Stepner claiming 'Winter.' Stepner also tends to feature one guest director per festival; this year it's historical keyboard maven Peter Sykes, who crafted an all-Baroque program called 'From Castello to Canzano.' The plot twist: Nicola Canzano, whose music concludes the program, was born in 1991. So was Nathan Adam Mondry, who also has two pieces on the program. How do a pair of 30-somethings end up writing Baroque trio sonatas and sinfoniettas? Canzano, who studied composition as an undergraduate, credits a masterclass with composer Michael Gordon that he signed up for by accident. 'I showed him what I was working on, and he listened, and he said 'Hmm! It sounds like you really just want to write Baroque music,'' he said. Advertisement Historically informed music, or music composed according to Baroque-era principles, was in fact what Canzano wanted to write. However, since his colleagues and teachers were writing in decidedly more contemporary styles, he had drunk 'the Kool-Aid that it wasn't kosher for some reason.' Once he embraced his passion for it, Canzano honed his skills through performing on the harpsichord, which typically involves a good deal of improvisation. 'Now people actually pay me to write it, which is kind of crazy. My mother still doesn't really believe it.' However, given the past several decades' surge of interest in period instruments and historical performance practices, it doesn't feel like such a logical leap to Canzano that composers might want to explore those styles as well. 'People have been playing this stuff since it was invented, which is not true of every genre of music,' he said. 'Corelli's never been out of print.' Both Canzano and Mondry are 'really terrific keyboard players and improvisers, and they're serious about writing real Baroque music,' Stepner said. 'That means they have to become contrapuntalists, and be real familiar with styles — dance music in particular — and also forms.' And at the end of the day, if you listen to his music, Canzano joked, 'you wouldn't know that I wasn't dead.' ASTON MAGNA MUSIC FESTIVAL Starts July 10. Newton and Great Barrington. A.Z. Madonna can be reached at
New York Times
29-04-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
N.Y.C. Museum Celebrates the Nation's 250th Anniversary
Good morning. It's Tuesday. Today we'll look at exhibitions that the New York Historical is planning for the nation's 250th anniversary. We'll also get details on a contentious town hall with Representative Mike Lawler, one of the most vulnerable Republicans in the House. If you happen to have a pair of platform shoes — vintage, from the 1970s — the New York Historical might want to borrow them. The New York Historical, formerly the New-York Historical Society, is preparing six exhibitions for the nation's 250th anniversary next year. New York will be a major character in all six because the nation's democracy began in New York, where the man who had been first in war became the first head of the newfangled federal government. An exhibition opening in the fall will present Revolutionary-era documents from the New York Historical's collection. Another exhibition, opening in February of next year, will spotlight the little-known or unknown achievements of women before, during and just after the Revolutionary War. The New York Historical is also beginning 'On Our 250th,' a digital campaign with a coalition of history museums. People can go here to write a birthday wish to the United States ('What are your hopes for America's future and our democracy?'). It's not a place to be prolix: Each message is limited to 250 characters, or about 50 words. One of the six exhibitions, called 'You Should Be Dancing,' won't look back to 1776. Its focus will be the nation's bicentennial in 1976 — and prompted that search for period items like platform shoes. 'That's what you do in a museum — you get the authentic stuff of history,' said Louise Mirrer, the president and chief executive of the New York Historical. 'We've got lots of authentic stuff, but we are missing a couple of items.' She also hopes to find a pair of shorts like the ones Dustin Hoffman wore in 'Marathon Man,' the thriller that came out that year. She did not mention hunting down the diamond that Laurence Olivier was forced to swallow at gunpoint in the movie. She said the idea for 'You Should Be Dancing' came from the historian Ted Widmer, who was a speechwriter in the Clinton White House and later was a senior adviser when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. 'He said, 'Wouldn't it be interesting to look back at what we were doing in 1976?'' Mirrer recalled. It was the disco era, which led to the title of the exhibition. The bicentennial played out months after The Daily News wrote one of the most unforgettable headlines of all time: 'Ford to City: Drop Dead.' Those five words told how the administration of President Gerald Ford saw New York and its financial troubles. 'If you were a pessimist, you might have seen it as New York's lowest point,' Mirrer said. 'This is a great lesson for today. Obviously New York is in a different place than where it was 50 years ago, but a lot of people are feeling pessimistic on many, many levels. It's good to remember that this country manages to pull itself together every time it has a challenge that seems insurmountable. It manages to transcend the pessimism and enjoy a rebirth.' She then looked back to the New York Historical's own founders, 11 men who started the organization in 1804. They had lived through the Revolution, when New York was mostly occupied by the British. 'You could have said the city will never amount to anything,' she said. 'Philadelphia and Boston were more important cities at the time, but New York was central in many ways. And if you looked around you in 1804, the ordinary person would not have felt very hopeful about the American experiment or the city's ability to become what it became.' But the 11 founders were 'consistently optimistic about the future,' so much that they decided to collect and preserve the history of the Revolution, she said. My colleague Winnie Hu says that another new exhibition, 'CityWorks,' at the New York Hall of Science, serves as an ode to the resilience of cities in a different way. 'CityWorks' goes deep into the often overlooked physical and human infrastructure that keeps cities going. The exhibit draws on real-life New York City data, from traffic counts and subway ridership to maps of flood areas. 'CityWorks' opens on Saturday. A warm, sunny day, with temperatures near 80. Showers and wind from 11 to 14 miles per hour are expected late in the evening, with temperatures in the mid-60s. In effect until May 26 (Memorial Day). The latest New York news A rough night for a Republican's town hall Representative Mike Lawler didn't take the advice of Republican leaders, who told House members not to hold town hall meetings with constituents amid anger at the Trump administration. My colleague Nicholas Fandos writes that no one expected a love fest, but Lawler faced shouts, groans and mockery as he sparred with voters. Even he seemed surprised by the first clash of the evening, over the Pledge of Allegiance. Some people in the audience inside a high school auditorium groaned when he suggested reciting it. The group stood and said the words, but some indicated that the Pledge had come to ring hollow. 'Authoritarian,' one man yelled, apparently referring to President Trump. 'Support the Constitution,' another man said. So it went for two hours as Lawler, one of the most vulnerable Republicans in the House, faced criticism on everything from tax cuts to how brightly the room was illuminated. He told the audience to disregard a budget blueprint he had supported that called for $2 trillion in spending cuts, including possible reductions for Medicaid. 'That is as good as the paper it's written on,' he said. And, in a session that often turned combative, he got a rare round of applause when he defended the use of vaccines and criticized Trump's health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has cast doubt on the efficacy of vaccination. 'The fact is, where I disagree, I have no problem saying it and pushing back against the things they are saying,' Lawler said. Close calls Dear Diary: New York City dog owners have their regular routes. For years, mine began with a right turn out of my Yorkville building. One evening, I decided to turn left. My terrier tugged to go right, but my tug won out. A few steps into our walk, I heard a tremendous thud behind me. I turned to see an air-conditioner that had tumbled from a window several stories up onto the sidewalk just on the other side of my building's front door. A young man stood nearby facing me. He had stopped short in time to watch the heavy metal crash down at his feet. I walked toward him and stopped, with the air-conditioner between us. His face was ghostly pale, as I imagined mine was. A woman rushed out of the building. 'Oh my god!' she cried. 'My air-conditioner! I opened my window and didn't realize it was keeping the unit in place!' 'Or, perhaps,' the young man said, 'that's yours.' He pointed toward a second air-conditioner on the ground a few feet away. 'Oh no!' the woman said. 'Mine hit another one on the way down.' — Sylvie Farrell Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here. Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. P.S. Here's today's Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here. Geordon Wollner and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@ Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.
New York Times
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
An Exhibition Explores Whether the Red Scare Has Lessons for America Today
For those who wonder if history repeats itself, an upcoming show at the New York Historical, may provide some insight — and a warning. 'Blacklisted: An American Story,' highlights a dark chapter in American history by focusing on two decades of attacks on political leftists and suspected Communists in Hollywood that resulted in destroyed careers, jail terms and pitted many in the entertainment industry against one another. Perhaps there are lessons to be learned. Or, at the very least, 'Blacklisted' may provide something to think about, which is the goal of the exhibition. The exhibition 'is a way to remind people of a time when questions were raised about who is an American and of citizenship,'' said Louise Mirrer, president and chief executive of the New York Historical, in an interview. 'We are asking the same questions today that were there at the genesis of the Blacklist era. This exhibit could not be more relevant and timely.' 'Blacklisted,' which runs from June 13 to Oct. 19, focuses on what became known as the Red Scare. For decades, starting after World War I and returning with greater fury in the 1940s and 1950s, a variety of politicians, government officials and agencies began to root out many individuals for their leftist beliefs and — correctly or not — Communist sympathies. It wasn't hard to find people to attack. The hardships of the Depression in the 1930s led to a growth in membership in the Communist Party in America by those seeking a different economic system. But as the Soviet Union changed from being a World War II ally to a Cold War enemy in the years that followed, hundreds of leftist activists in the 1930s were now under suspicion. The New York Historical (formerly known as the New-York Historical Society) exhibition focuses on the Hollywood blacklist, when actors, writers, musicians and others in the entertainment industry were targeted and often lost their jobs for their real or suspected ties or sympathies to the Communist Party or their refusal to aid government and Congressional investigations by identifying others. 'People are now asking questions about which books can be given to the young,'' said Mirrer, 'or what films can be circulated and what is taught.'' She added, 'It's important to remind people of the things that happened in the past and encourage them to think about today.' For Mirrer, the blacklist era is not in the distant past. 'I remember as a youth in the 1960s, that my mother had many friends targeted by HUAC,'' said Mirrer, referring to the House Un-American Activities Committee, which investigated suspected Communists. 'There were whispers of people who had lost their jobs or had their lives ruined or fled to Canada.' An earlier version of the exhibition was shown in 2023 at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles and was developed in coordination with the Jewish Museum in Milwaukee. It has been expanded in the last two years with around 50 new items added. While the exhibition touches on the anti-Communist campaign by Senator Joseph McCarthy, it focuses mainly on the HUAC hearings, which predated McCarthy's later hearings in the Senate. There are about 150 objects in the exhibition highlighting a number of themes, among them the 1947 HUAC hearings, in which Hollywood actors were forced to testify either about their own political activities or those of others. The exhibition will examine those who named names and those who resisted. It shows how blacklisted writers were forced to write under other people's names, how Broadway served as a refuge for many blacklisted artists and how the blacklist era was finally broken. On display will be photos, posters, film clips, costumes and newsreels from the HUAC committee hearings along with personal narratives from those blacklisted and from film executives and members of Congress. In addition, the show will feature subpoenas from HUAC, telegrams, documents and other personal items. Such Hollywood names as Paul Robeson, Elia Kazan, Lillian Hellman, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Lee Grant and Orson Welles are among those featured — for better or worse. One section of the exhibition looks at 'the Hollywood Ten,'' the left-wing screenwriters and directors who refused to answer questions before HUAC and were later jailed in 1950 for contempt of Congress. Prominent among them was the screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who wrote such films as 'Roman Holiday,' 'Exodus' and 'Spartacus,'' some under a false name and others uncredited at the time. His uncredited work won two Academy Awards. Some items on display came from descendants of blacklisted actors and writers, among them drawings that Mr. Trumbo's daughter sent him while he was in prison. Other items come from Columbia University, the University of Pittsburgh, the New York Public Library and Carnegie Hall. 'It was exciting to reach out to families and descendants to incorporate so many personal items in the show,'' said Anne Lessy, curator of the show. Lessy added that the exhibition shows a 'Red Scare that goes beyond McCarthyism.' The daughter of the actor John Garfield lent an original portrait she made of her father as well as a number of movie posters. His acting career was cut short following his refusal to name names when called before the committee. He was, effectively, blacklisted and later died of a heart attack at age 39. Julie Garfield recalled, in an interview, how her father and her family were constantly followed by F.B.I. agents. The agents even came to the family home after her father's death, which she blames on the stress of that era. While her father was accused of being a member of the Communist Party, he never was. 'We want to show people how awful and messed up the country was,'' said Garfield, who is an actress and teacher. 'And how it was intimidated by one or two people who were allowed to ruin the lives of people. People were destroyed because of their beliefs.' In terms of lessons that the exhibition may impart, Mirrer outlined a dark side and a more hopeful one. 'I would like people to know that there were people of great courage who took the view that American democracy was of the utmost importance and had to be sustained,' she said. 'They saw to it, and the period came to an end. ''
