David Noel Edwards is a writer, composer, and recording artist from Canaan, New York. He has been writing for the Berkshire Edge since 2015, mainly about music, but also about books, birds, and reptiles.
Having grown up on a farm in Maryland, Merrill has a deep and abiding respect for all animals, especially as they have become scarcer on Berkshire farms.
Ayers’ characters entertain us by sticking their noses into all kinds of difficult social and political issues, and the result is often absurdly comical.
“Beethoven’s work,” Yudkin explains, “is of such a stature that it warrants constant reviewing and research. We’re dealing here with a genius of the highest purpose, someone on a par with William Shakespeare.”
However, what no one could possibly have anticipated — neither the Mahaiwe audience nor anyone living in the 18th-century — was the unprecedented genius of the great patriarch, Johann Sebastian Bach.
Soyeon Kate Lee’s delivery of Scriabin’s Op. 28 is so manifestly heartfelt that it would be difficult to say whether she owns the piece or is possessed by it.
“The true story of the war on cancer is not just a war against nature but a war of us against ourselves . . . We have the tools to eradicate cancer.”
-- Dr. Vincent T. DeVita Jr.
Shouldn’t we all just accept the gender we were born with? “Sexual orientation is who you go to bed with. Gender identity is who you go to bed as.”
-- Client at gender clinic at Children’s Hospital in Boston
When you witness a performance by musicians of this caliber, you are seeing the result not only of innate musical talent but also about ten thousand hours of practice that each musician must invest before reaching this level of virtuosity.
“Everybody on the spectrum has a vast beautiful world inside them — whether or not society gives them the chance to express that is the question.”
-- Steve Silberman, from his book, “Neurotribes”
If any conductor “owns” Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, it’s Michael Tilson Thomas. He certainly lived up to his Mahlerian reputation. When it comes to Mahler, Michael Tilson Thomas and the BSO are peerless.
My music appeals to amateurs and specialists. The amateurs because they just love it without knowing why; the professionals because they can hear everything I am doing.
--Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
