Collected articles

For a comprehensive collection of my work, without paywalls and including a number of my pieces from the Wall Street Journal, visit my page at Authory.com. Below, by contrast, is a curated and sometimes changing group of highlights. Articles are from The Washington Post unless otherwise specified. 

Furloughed musicians and a new digital frontier: Performing arts in the Covid-19 shutdown. Vanity Fair, 4/2020

(Paywall may apply.)

What does a conductor do, anyway? A music critic lays it out: 10/2019

A beginner's guide to enjoying classical music: no snobs allowed. 10/2018

Classical musicians reveal a profession rife with harassment (with Peggy McGlone): 7/2018

There's still high culture in America: why the NSO went to Moscow: 3/2017

Pianos: beyond the Steinway monoculture: 9/2015

Kissin plays forgotten composers, declaims poetry in stunning performance: 2/2014
Katie's Theme: The Los Angeles Times, 9/2006

The trouble with opera. 2/2018

New opera wants the same appeal as television. If only it could be as smart. 7/2017 

Two views of Glass's "Appomattox:" A superb night at the opera and "Appomattox, redux" (both 11/2015).

The rarity of black faces, not 'Otello' in blackface, should be issue in opera. 10/2015

On spinning in opera, and going through the motions: 3/2015

Tenor Ian Bostridge performs 'Winterreise": 2/2015

The End of the Great Big American Voice: New York Times, 11/2005

Neglected visionary Agnes Denes altered our landscape with her art. At 88, she's finally getting her due: 10/2019

Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series, reunited: 10/2016

Roy Lichtenstein: a retrospective at the National Gallery: 10/2012

Separating the dissident from the artist: Ai Weiwei: 10/2012

You can't hold it, but you can own it: Tino Sehgal: The New York Times, 11/2007

Women give voice to a male canon. It happens to be Ancient Greek: 7/2019 

'Hamilton' is opera for our time: 7/2018 

Streep sings Sondheim, and finds her voice: 12/2014 

A cultural critic's restless last night: The New York Times, 11/2007

Twyla Tharp, with an eye on her legacy: The Los Angeles Times, 6/2001

Germany's classic of classics, all 21 hours: The New York Times, 8/2000 

Philip Glass: The Washington Post, 11/2018
Martha Argerich: The Washington Post, 12/2016
Tzimon Barto: The Washington Post, 2/2011
Angela Gheorghiu: The New York Times, 12/2005
MIrella Freni: The New York Times, 9/2002
Hans Hotter: Opera News, 5/2000
Luciano Pavarotti: Opera News, 11/1998
Ewa Podles: The New York Times, 10/1998

He was an angry, troubled child. Then he discovered opera: 9/2016
The worst of Bach: 8/2016
In search of the Mozart effect: 8/2016
Julian Barnes takes on music, timidly: 5/2016

I know the sad kid at the zoo: The Washington Post, 11/2013
The real Philomena Lee finds Hollywood ending to adoption story: The Washington Post, 2/2014
Jonathan Williams, RIP: originally published 3/2008