Music

Our chief classical music critic bids farewell with some thoughts about what should be preserved in the field he’s covered for decades.For more than three decades as a critic, I’ve shared my passion for classical music. I’ve also expressed frustrations with the field. Of all the performing arts, mine has been the most conservative, the most stuck in a core repertory of works from the distant past.Major orchestras and opera companies must make fostering relationships with living composers a top priority, and work harder to empower female and minority artists. Institutions need to find more effective ways to connect with their diverse communities. If this means modifying — even tossing out — old models for presenting music, like the increasingly obsolete subscription series format that’s routine at most orchestras, so be it.Yet, especially after 18 perilous months when this art form seemed in danger of disappearing altogether, I love it more than ever. I want to protect it, as well as shake it up.So what things about classical music shouldn’t change? I’ve been pondering this as I approach my departure after 21 years as the chief classical music critic of The New York Times.It’s not inconsistent to fret over the fixation on a roster of familiar works while also extolling the repertory that’s been created over centuries. The staples are often staples for good reasons.The musical, dramatic and emotional richness of Puccini’s “La Bohème” emerges anew every time an eager cast, good orchestra and sensitive director present it. Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto may be performed too much for its own good, but it’s undeniable: The score is ingenious, original and exciting.Bach’s “Well-Tempered Clavier” — 48 preludes and fugues for keyboard in two books — is a foundational achievement of Western music. He wrote on the title page that these pieces were for “the profit and use of musical youth desirous of learning.” And, starting with his own children, students over generations — me included — have studied and played these pieces. Yet when the superb pianist Jeremy Denk did the first book from memory at the 92nd Street Y this month, his performance was a reminder of how audaciously inventive and awesomely intricate, how fresh and startling, Bach’s music is.That said, the concept of the “standard repertory” will continue to sap the vitality of music until it is understood to fully embrace the contributions of composers over the last 100 years: Bartok and Boulez, Stravinsky and Kaija Saariaho, George Walker and Judith Weir. If music is to have a bright future, as well as a storied history, today’s composers — impressive voices like Andrew Norman, Kate Soper and Daniel Bernard Roumain — will take us there. It’s dismaying that, of some 100 pieces that the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center will perform on its main series this season, just two are by living composers, and neither was written in the 21st century.Tommasini playing one of the 88 pianos placed outdoors around New York by the nonprofit group Sing for Hope in 2013.Philip Greenberg for The New York TimesBut here I go again, slipping back into warnings and calls for change. What else about the field should be cherished? The sheer, splendid sound of music. A magnificent voice carrying through a spacious opera house. A vibrant orchestra performing in a fine hall. A string quartet playing in an intimate venue that seats only a couple hundred people.In our pervasively amplified, streamed, digitally connected world, the vibrant spaces where classical works are ideally performed are precious preserves of natural acoustics.Of course, we should be careful not to let the ambience of these experiences feel rarefied, as if audiences are entering sacred temples. Yet even newcomers I’ve taken to hear a renowned orchestra at Carnegie Hall are often stunned by the shimmering, resonant sound. We may be missing an opportunity today to sell a classical concert as a break from routine, an invitation to turn off devices and sit in silence among others — listening, sometimes for long stretches, to works that demand our focus, music that may be majestic, mystical, shattering, tender, wrenching, frenetic, giddy or all of the above.Since the early 20th century, electronic resources have dramatically expanded the range and palette of sounds and colors. Olivier Messiaen, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Osvaldo Golijov and many other composers have created works that imaginatively fold electronic sounds into traditional ensembles — with transfixing results.Still, I hope that composers and performers will never forgo the magic of unamplified sound in natural acoustics. Think of how the Broadway musical changed starting in the early 1960s, when amplification became commonplace, often to excess. I can only imagine how glorious it must have been to hear Ethel Merman and Ginger Rogers in “Girl Crazy” in a theater with no amplification — or John Raitt, who could have been a Verdi baritone, singing Billy’s “Soliloquy” in “Carousel.” Those days are gone.During the time I’ve reported on this field, I’ve been continually impressed by the entrepreneurial energy of artists who — realizing that traditional career paths were becoming limited, and that major institutions were overlooking new generations of creators — ventured off on their own. They formed composer-performer collectives and ensembles, like Bang on a Can, which presents concerts and festivals of experimental music; and the International Contemporary Ensemble, founded by the flutist Claire Chase, who has been an impassioned voice calling on young musicians to create their own groups and put on concerts anywhere, anyhow.This entrepreneurial bent, often born of necessity, goes back a long way. I love reading about how, during the mid-1780s, when patrons and imperial posts were not coming his way, Mozart mounted his own concerts in Vienna for a few years — renting halls, including some unconventional spaces like a restaurant ballroom, and lining up players. His programs always featured piano concertos he wrote for himself. Mozart has many successors today, like the string players of the JACK Quartet, tenaciously devoted to contemporary music; and, lately, the American Modern Opera Company, whose mission is to develop discipline-blurring new works and whose core members include singers, composers, directors, instrumentalists and dancers.And in Central Park again, in September 2020, experiencing Ellen Reid’s mobile, app-based work “Soundwalk,” presented by the New York Philharmonic.Justin Kaneps for The New York TimesWhat also must not change is the mission of our excellent conservatories and university music schools. As the word suggests, conservatories are dedicated to maintaining and passing on a tradition. To arrive as a student at one of these great institutions is humbling: You study your instrument with a master; you analyze great works of the past in classes taught by formidable composers.Yet these places also empower you. That was certainly my experience as an undergraduate music major and then a graduate student at Yale. Over weeks and months, the pianists who studied with my teacher, Donald Currier, regularly played for each other under his oversight. I listened as older students made progress with daunting works like Brahms’s “Handel Variations,” Ravel’s “Gaspard de la Nuit” and Schumann’s Fantasy in C. The performances they eventually gave of these iconic scores remain signature moments of my musical life. In a rush of enthusiasm, I’d think: “Who needs Vladimir Ashkenazy? Look what we can do!”Today’s schools are also hotbeds of innovation and contemporary work where you can take in whole festivals devoted to Latin American music; hear John Adams conducting his own pieces and older scores he admires; or attend (as I once did at Boston University) a series of recitals presenting the complete songs of Britten, performed in chronological order.In cities and towns across America, these schools are rich community resources, offering opportunities for audiences to hear recitals, chamber music, orchestra concerts and staged operas — often for free, or at very affordable prices. So much for the perception that classical music is elitist and expensive.Most important, music lovers should never cease feeling gratitude to the musicians who play works old and new with skill, commitment and sensitivity. For me this roster stretches from the giants of my youth, like Rudolf Serkin, Arthur Rubinstein, Leonard Bernstein, Leontyne Price and Renata Tebaldi, to the exciting new artists who keep arriving, like Joyce DiDonato, Jennifer Koh, Davóne Tines and Igor Levit.These are all stars. Yet I have always been especially affected by the dedicated, highly skilled and selfless artists who have less prominent profiles and live more workaday lives in music — performers who play older repertory beautifully, while being instinctively drawn to the new; performers who are ready at a moment’s notice to take part in a premiere by a composer friend, because that’s what it means, and what it has always meant, to be a musician. Among pianists alone, I could single out Sarah Cahill, Blair McMillen and Conor Hanick. These accomplished artists are the good citizens of classical music.Whenever I have spoken to students or emerging professional performers about my work, I say that what I do is not as hard — nor nearly as essential — as what they do, but that we’re on the same side, that we all want music to thrive, and that I can help.That’s what I’ve tried to do. More

Our critics and writers have selected noteworthy cultural events to experience virtually and in person in New York City.KIDSRides and More RidesFrom left, a metal swing ride with detachable riders (1906-20) and a Ferris wheel featuring six gondolas and a music box (1906-20), which are on view in the New-York Historical Society’s exhibition “Holiday Express: Toys and Trains From the Jerni Collection.”New-York Historical SocietyAlong with ice cream trucks and trips to the beach, amusement park fun tends to vanish when the weather turns cold. But Manhattan now offers one place where children can still enjoy some of the splendor of Ferris wheels, roller coasters, carousels and more: the New-York Historical Society.For the first time, its annual winter show, “Holiday Express: Toys and Trains From the Jerni Collection,” includes vintage 19th- and 20th-century carnival playthings. On view through Feb. 27, the exhibition includes such highlights as the collection’s largest toy Ferris wheel (1906-20), made in France with six gondolas, a music box and 17 tiny occupants; a miniature German roller coaster (1886-1917); and blimp rides from the early 1900s with little zeppelin-like compartments.Young visitors, who can pick up a guide to go on a scavenger hunt through the show, will also see the collection’s signature trains — some are chugging merrily — along with model stations.Want more vicarious time travel? Families can register for the society’s latest program in the Living History series, which, like the exhibition, is free with museum admission. At 12:30 p.m. on Sunday, it invites children to learn about 18th-century holiday traditions and make their own decorations.LAUREL GRAEBERClassical MusicFixing a Problem PieceA scene from Janacek’s “Osud” (”Destiny”) at National Theater Brno, a recording of which is available to stream on Operavision’s platform and YouTube channel through May.Marek OlbrzymekThanks to “Jenufa,” “Kat’a Kabanova” and “The Makropulos Case,” the music of the Czech composer Leos Janacek is a core part of the 20th-century repertoire in opera. However, another effort — “Osud” (“Destiny”) — is something of a problem piece. As a result, it has proved to be of interest mainly to scholars and hard-core fans.A new production overseen by Robert Carsen — one of the most consistent directors working — aids the dramatic arc, and thus allows viewers another encounter with Janacek’s masterly musical style. (The opera’s tricky narrative timeline is presented cleanly, but with two singers playing the central role of Zivny, the composer.) Carsen’s approach to this tale of snuffed-out love and throttled creativity was produced for the National Theater Brno, and is available to stream free on Operavision’s platform and its YouTube channel through May.SETH COLTER WALLSPop & RockA Pinc Louds ChristmasClaudi from Pinc Louds performing in Tompkins Square Park. The band will present its “Christmas Tentacular” at Elsewhere on Friday.Bob KrasnerThe Hall at Elsewhere is a more conventional concert space than Pinc Louds have recently been accustomed to. During the pandemic, the band — headed up by Claudi, a Puerto Rico-born singer and guitarist who writes punkish, jazzy songs inspired by love and city life — took up residence at Tompkins Square Park, where they played for fans and passers-by twice a week. Before that, Claudi, an avid busker, was a fixture at the Delancey Street subway station on the Lower East Side.A Pinc Louds show is anything but conventional, though. The audience at their “Christmas Tentacular,” which comes to Elsewhere’s main space on Friday, can expect a colorful, whimsical affair, complete with covers of holiday tunes, puppets and festive sets. Doors are at 6 p.m., and Tall Juan, whose music spans rock, cumbia and reggae, will start his opening set at 6:30. Tickets are $20 and available at elsewherebrooklyn.com.OLIVIA HORNTheaterAudio Drama RevealedFrom left, Jordan Boatman, Marcia Jean Kurtz and Lance Coadie Williams in Deb Margolin’s “That Old Perplexity,” one of two audio dramas featured in Keen Company’s “Hear/Now: LIVE!” Carol RoseggIf the expertly produced audio dramas that have flourished since the start of the pandemic have led you to ask, “How did the artists accomplish this?,” now you have the opportunity to solve that mystery with the Keen Company’s “Hear/Now: LIVE!”The 90-minute performance will feature two world premieres commissioned to be performed in what the company calls “an exciting live format,” showcasing original music and foley effects executed in front of the audience. In “The Telegram” by Mashuq Mushtaq Deen, two cowboys encounter the strange realities of the Wild West as they pay homage to a genre that captivated American listeners during the 1920s. In Deb Margolin’s comedy “That Old Perplexity,” two women develop a connection triggered by the turmoil and grief of a post-9/11 New York City.Tickets are $31.50 and available at bfany.org. Performances will take place at Theater Row on Thursday at 7 p.m., Friday at 8, Saturday at 2 and 8, and Sunday at 3.JOSE SOLÍS More

Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie and Quincy Jones were among the public faces of that 1985 fund-raising record. But behind the scenes, Mr. Kragen made it all happen.The entertainer and humanitarian Harry Belafonte was so inspired by “Do They Know It’s Christmas?,” the record released by an all-star lineup of British and Irish musicians in late 1984 to raise money for famine relief in Africa, that he wanted to do something similar with American musicians. But Mr. Belafonte, in his late 50s at the time, knew he had to recruit current stars to pull off the idea.“I needed a younger generation of artists,” he wrote in his memoir, “My Song” (2011), “the ones at the top of the charts right now: Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Kenny Rogers and Cyndi Lauper. When I looked at the management of most of these artists, I kept seeing the same name: Ken Kragen.”Mr. Kragen, after some persuading, latched onto Mr. Belafonte’s vision and became a pivotal behind-the-scenes force in creating “We Are the World,” the collaborative song recorded by a dizzying array of stars (including Mr. Belafonte) and released in March 1985. The song became a worldwide hit and, along with an album of the same name, raised millions of dollars for hunger relief in Africa and elsewhere.Among the participants in the recording of “We Are the World” were, clockwise from left, Mr. Richie, Daryl Hall, Mr. Jones, Paul Simon and Stevie Wonder.Associated Press“When Belafonte called me, the first call I made was to Kenny Rogers,” who was one of his clients, Mr. Kragen recalled in a 1994 interview with Larry King on CNN. “Then I called Lionel Richie. Then I called Quincy Jones. Lionel called Stevie Wonder. Within 24 hours, we had six or seven of the biggest names in the industry.”Soon “six or seven” had snowballed into dozens, with Paul Simon, Bette Midler, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, Tina Turner, Willie Nelson and Diana Ross among them. Mr. Jackson and Mr. Richie wrote the song; Mr. Jones conducted the recording session in January 1985, a gathering that became the stuff of music legend.Mr. Kragen, who went on to organize or help organize other formidable fund-raising projects, including Hands Across America in 1986, died on Tuesday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 85. His daughter, Emma Kragen, confirmed the death. No cause was specified.As Mr. Kragen often told the story later, his goal at first on the “We Are the World” project was to recruit two new stars a day. But soon recruiting wasn’t his problem.“Lionel Richie had this line — he says, ‘You are who you hug,’” he told Mr. King, “and the thing is that everybody wanted to hug somebody who was hipper or somebody who was more successful. So the day that I got Bruce Springsteen, the floodgates opened, because he was the hottest artist in America.”At that point, Mr. Kragen went from dialing the phone to answering it — a lot.“I started to get calls from everybody,” he told The Los Angeles Times in 1985, just after the recording session. “I tried hard to cut it off at 28 — to this day I don’t know how it got to be 46. Still, we turned down almost 50 artists.”Mr. Kragen was the founding president of USA for Africa, the foundation set up to administer the aid money raised by “We Are the World,” which continues today. According to its website, it has raised more than $100 million to alleviate poverty.Kenneth Allan Kragen was born on Nov. 24, 1936, in Berkeley, Calif. His father, Adrian, was a lawyer who later taught law at the University of California, Berkeley; his mother, Billie, was a violinist.While studying engineering at Berkeley, Mr. Kragen began frequenting local nightclubs and soon became friendly with the Kingston Trio, a fledgling group at the time that often played at the Purple Onion in San Francisco. He began booking the trio at colleges, and when he graduated in 1958, he was asked to manage them; instead he went to Harvard’s graduate school of business. Before starting there, he took a trip to Europe with his parents; when he came home, a new group was getting a lot of buzz nationally: the Kingston Trio.“I just wanted to die,” Mr. Kragen told The New York Times in 1986. “I thought I’d blown the chance of a lifetime.”But once he earned his graduate degree in 1960, he found new opportunities as a talent manager and promoter. He managed the folk group the Limeliters and then picked up the Smothers Brothers in 1964. He and his business partner at the time, Kenneth Fritz, were executive producers of “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” which during its three-season run, from 1967 to 1969, was one of the most talked-about shows on television because of its battles with censors.In 1975, he went to work for Jerry Weintraub, a talent manager with a formidable roster that included John Denver, Led Zeppelin and the Moody Blues. (Mr. Weintraub soon became a noted film and television producer.) Mr. Kragen started his own company in 1979, attracting clients like the Bee Gees, Olivia Newton-John and Trisha Yearwood.Mr. Kragen helped organize the fund-raising event Hands Across America and participated in it at Battery Park in Lower Manhattan in May 1986, along with Jean Sherwood and her daughter, Amy.David Bookstaver/Associated PressMr. Kragen produced television movies featuring Mr. Rogers, as well as TV specials for the singer Linda Eder and others. One of his fund-raising efforts was Hands Across America, whose goal was to create a chain of people holding hands that stretched from coast to coast. The event took place in May 1986. The coast-to-coast chain didn’t quite materialize — there were gaps in various places — and though the event raised millions of dollars for hunger and homelessness, it fell short of its $50 million goal. But some five million people participated, including President Ronald Reagan.Mr. Kragen married the actress Cathy Worthington in 1978. In addition to her and his daughter, he is survived by a sister, Robin Merritt.In 2019, Buzzfeed asked Mr. Kragen if he could envision a reprise of Hands Across America. He couldn’t. People, he said, would be too busy documenting their participation with selfies to actually hold hands. More

After repeated delays caused by the pandemic, the company plans to perform at the opera house next summer for the first time in three years.After repeated delays brought by the pandemic, American Ballet Theater plans to return to the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House next summer for the first time in three years, the company announced on Thursday.Ballet Theater will present a five-week season starting in June that features staples of the repertoire, like “Don Quixote” and “Swan Lake,” as well as new works, including Alexei Ratmansky’s “Of Love and Rage” and a new ballet by Alonzo King, his first for the company.The company’s leaders hope the return to the Met will mark a return to normalcy after the coronavirus forced the cancellation of two seasons and cost Ballet Theater millions of dollars in anticipated ticket revenue and touring fees.“We need really to be the antidote to the craziness out there,” Kevin McKenzie, the company’s artistic director, said in an interview. “We represent human excellence — what the human being can achieve as a creative being. The world needs that.”McKenzie said that the recent spread of new variants of the virus was worrisome, but that the company had shown it could safely host performances by maintaining strict rules, including a vaccine mandate for audience members and performers.“What we’re getting to realizing is that we just have to plan for these protocols for the rest of our lives and don’t even think it’s going to get better,” McKenzie said. “And then it will be a wonderful surprise when it does.”The season opens June 13 with a gala performance of “Don Quixote,” featuring a different lead cast in each act. Two other full-length ballets will be presented: the Tchaikovsky classic “Swan Lake,” a staging by McKenzie after Petipa; and Kenneth MacMillan’s “Romeo and Juliet,” set to Prokofiev.The season also includes the New York premiere of “Of Love and Rage,” a new evening-length ballet, which was originally set to debut in 2020. The new dance by King is set to music by the jazz pianist and composer Jason Moran.Also on the calendar are George Balanchine’s “Theme and Variations” and Jessica Lang’s “ZigZag,” set to songs recorded by Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga, which Ballet Theater featured at its fall gala.The coming year will be one of transition for Ballet Theater. In January, Janet Rollé, general manager of Beyoncé’s entertainment firm, will assume the role of chief executive and executive director.McKenzie will step down at the end of next year after three decades as artistic director. He said he hoped a successor would be named before the summer season. More

The renowned conservatory will use a grant from a California foundation to expand a training program focused largely on Black and Latino schoolchildren.For three decades, the Juilliard School has sought to bring more diversity to classical music by offering a weekend training program aimed largely at Black and Latino schoolchildren.Now the renowned conservatory is planning a major expansion of the initiative, known as the Music Advancement Program: Juilliard announced on Thursday that it had received a $50 million gift that it would use to increase enrollment in the program by 40 percent and to provide full scholarships to all participants.“This will be transformational,” Damian Woetzel, Juilliard’s president, said in an interview. “It will broaden the pathway to the highest level of classical music education in such a significant way.”The gift is from Crankstart, a foundation in California backed by the venture capitalist Michael Moritz and his wife, Harriet Heyman, a writer, who are longtime supporters of the program.Heyman, in announcing the gift, pointed to the lack of racial and ethnic diversity in American orchestras, where only about 4 percent of musicians are Black or Hispanic. The Music Advancement Program’s “commitment to recruiting underrepresented minorities will help bring new spirit, as well as superb young musicians, to orchestras, concert halls and theaters everywhere,” Heyman said in a statement.Juilliard aims to expand enrollment to 100 students, up from 70. The initiative will also broaden its reach to include younger students. (It currently serves children ages 8 through 18.) And in addition to full scholarships for all students, the gift will be used to create a fund to help them buy instruments.The program includes ear training, instrument lessons and theory classes for its students, who largely come from New York City public schools. Students can enroll for four years. The program costs $3,400 per year, though many students receive full or partial scholarships, currently funded from a variety of sources.While just seven Music Advancement Program students since 2010 have ended up in Juilliard’s undergraduate program, more have entered other prestigious institutions, including the Manhattan School of Music, Berklee College of Music and New England Conservatory. And 61 of the students have gained admission to Juilliard’s prestigious pre-college division.Anthony McGill, the New York Philharmonic’s principal clarinet and the artistic director of the program, said the gift would allow Juilliard to reach students who might have been reluctant to apply because of financial considerations.“We needed to make sure there were no barriers to getting more of the students we want into our program,” McGill said in an interview. “We wanted to open the doors, the pathways, to their success.”The program was founded in 1991 as a way of providing rigorous training for promising young musicians at a time when many New York schools were cutting music education classes. The initiative has at times faced financial difficulties. Juilliard almost suspended it in 2009, citing budget cuts and problems raising money. A group of donors, including Moritz and Heyman, eventually came to the rescue. In 2013, the couple stepped up again, giving $5 million.The program’s expansion comes amid a broader push by artists and cultural institutions to address longstanding inequities in classical music. Weston Sprott, who helps oversee the program as dean of Juilliard’s preparatory division, said being a musician of color was too often a lonely experience, and that ensembles should better reflect the diversity of their communities.“Oftentimes, as musicians of color, the reward that we get for our success is isolation,” Sprott, who is Black, said in an interview. “Classical music can’t be the best it can be without these young people that we’re bringing into our programs.” More

It is the first major performing arts institution to require boosters, as concern mounts over rising coronavirus cases and the spread of the Omicron variant. The rule will take effect Jan. 17.The Metropolitan Opera announced Wednesday that it would require all eligible adult employees and audience members to get Covid booster shots in order to enter the opera house, making its safety measures stricter than those on Broadway or at other venues.The Met is the first major performing arts organization in the city to announce a booster-shot mandate that will apply to audiences as well as staff members; the new rule will take effect Jan. 17. The policy was announced as concern about rising caseloads and the spread of the Omicron variant is mounting: The average daily number of coronavirus cases in the city has more than doubled over the past two weeks.“We think we should be setting an example,” Peter Gelb, the general manager of the Met, said in an interview. “Hopefully we will have an influence on other performing arts companies as well. I think it’s just a matter of time — everyone is going to be doing this.”It is not the first time that performing arts organizations, eager to reassure audiences that they could safely visit theaters, have imposed virus prevention measures that went beyond government mandates. When Broadway theaters announced over the summer that they would require audiences to be vaccinated and masked, it was several days before Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that New York City would impose a vaccine mandate for a variety of indoor spaces, including performing arts venues.Since the Met reopened after losing more than a full season to the pandemic, it has required that staff members and patrons be fully vaccinated to enter the opera house. But Gelb said that it had become “obvious” to him that even stronger safeguards were now necessary.“It’s of paramount importance that the audience members and employees feel safe when they enter the building,” he said. “To me, there is no question — this is the right move.”Since November, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended booster shots — either six months after people receive a second Pfizer or Moderna shot, or two months after a single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.When the Met’s new rules take effect Jan. 17, people eligible for booster shots will be required to have them to enter the opera house. (There will be a short grace period: People will be allowed in unboosted if the performance falls within two weeks of the date they become eligible for boosters. People who are not yet eligible for their booster shots will still be allowed in.) Inside the opera house, people will be required to wear face masks, except when they are eating or drinking in the limited areas where that is allowed.Met officials said that they reviewed their new policy with leaders of the various unions that represent its workers in advance of Wednesday’s announcement and described the union response to the rules as “very positive.”Len Egert, the national executive director of the American Guild of Musical Artists, said that union officials had determined that at the Met, “boosters are warranted,” and had subsequently bargained to make sure its members’ rights were protected.Adam Krauthamer, the president of Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians, said his union “applauds the Met’s plan to make vaccine boosters mandatory” and called the move “a necessary step forward to ensure the public’s safety and keep N.Y.C. as a beacon of live performance.”The company has adopted strict safety measures since reopening; in October, choristers wore masks backstage during a performance of “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.” Todd Heisler/The New York TimesIt was not immediately clear whether other arts institutions would follow the Met. Gelb said he had informed the leaders of Carnegie Hall, the New York Philharmonic and Lincoln Center that the Met would soon be adding a booster-shot mandate.Synneve​ Carlino, a spokeswoman for Carnegie Hall, said late Wednesday afternoon that officials there were “currently looking at boosters, but have not yet put new requirements into place.” The New York Philharmonic and Lincoln Center did not immediately say whether they would change their Covid policies. The Coronavirus Pandemic: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 4U.S. surpasses 800,000 deaths. More

The morning after Jordan Baize’s house in Kentucky was destroyed, he turned to his Yamaha piano. It was a moment of calm that his sister recorded on video.Jordan Baize returned to his house in Bremen, Ky., on Saturday to find that it had been badly damaged in a tornado. His piano was still intact, though, and he played a Christian worship song as his sister filmed.William Widmer for The New York TimesAfter emerging from his basement in Bremen, Ky., where he had sheltered during a tornado, Jordan Baize saw that the roof of his house had blown away, doors had come off their hinges, and shattered glass and insulation were scattered everywhere.His Yamaha piano, however, was still intact. Under an overcast sky the next morning, Mr. Baize sat alone in his living room and started to play a song that had been stuck in his head for days.Whitney Brown, Mr. Baize’s sister, said she heard her brother playing on Saturday while she was in his bedroom packing clothes into boxes. As she started recording Mr. Baize, she recognized the tune as a Christian worship song, “There’s Something About That Name,” and recalled the words:“Kings and kingdoms will all pass away, but there’s something about that name,” a reference to Jesus Christ.Ms. Brown said those lyrics seemed apt for the situation. Her brother’s house, his “kingdom,” had been destroyed, but his hope had not been, she said.“It was healing, just to know that he was still clinging on to the hope of Jesus,” said Ms. Brown, 32, a massage therapist and doula and an owner of a saw mill.At least 88 people were killed as tornadoes tore through Kentucky, Arkansas, Illinois, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee on Friday. Twelve people were killed in Bremen.Mr. Baize’s daughter’s chicken Betty atop his Yamaha piano after the tornado.Whitney BrownMr. Baize, 34, said he had not realized that his sister was recording him but was heartened by the response after she posted the video on Facebook.“In these times, whether folks all around the world have suffered a tornado this past weekend or not, we all are facing storms of some kind,” said Mr. Baize, an accountant and consultant. “That little bit of peace and perspective that I was dealing with, in what I thought was a personal, private moment, I think has spoken to people across the world.”Mr. Baize said that he rushed into the basement with his two children, his ex-wife and her husband, and they huddled under a mattress just before the tornado was expected on Friday night. Three or four minutes later, it arrived, he said. It lasted about 30 seconds.After the storm passed, he and his children spent the night at his parents’ house nearby. When he returned to the house the next morning, he took stock of the wreckage: debris everywhere, five or six inches of rain in what was left of the house, and damaged trees that three generations of his family had grown up climbing. He turned to the piano, which was covered with water.“I thought I might just see what shape the piano is in,” he recalled thinking. “If it’s in awful, terrible shape, I can at least play once more.” He started playing and felt a sense of peace.Gloria Gaither wrote the lyrics to “There’s Something About That Name,” and her husband, Bill Gaither, composed the music. She said she was overwhelmed after seeing the video clip of the song they wrote decades ago.“A song appears in somebody’s life when they need it, evidently,” she said, “in circumstances we never could have dreamed.” More

Jeannette Sorrell led superb voices and a stylish orchestra in Handel’s classic of the holiday season at Riverside Church.When performing arts institutions reopened in New York this fall, there were serious fears that audiences would stay away. But while ticket sales for classical music and opera have reportedly been soft elsewhere in the country, most of the events I’ve attended here in the city have had sizable audiences.So it was on Tuesday, when the New York Philharmonic — joined by Apollo’s Singers, the chorus of the early-music ensemble Apollo’s Fire, and four superb vocal soloists, all led by Jeannette Sorrell — gave a splendid performance of Handel’s “Messiah” at Riverside Church.Before the concert, ticket holders waited patiently in a line that circled the block to enter the church, after going through a vaccination check and temperature reading. With seating for about 1,430 inside, the performance was sold out. (There are limited tickets through Saturday.)“Messiah” is so familiar that it’s difficult for a performance to stand out. But this one did — not because Sorrell brought any striking interpretive approach to the score, but because she guided a lithe, glowing and elegant performance from the fine soloists, stirring chorus and orchestra.This was the Philharmonic debut of Sorrell, who founded Apollo’s Fire, based in Cleveland, 30 years ago. Starting with the Sinfonia, the players brought qualities associated with early music to bear: focused sound (with just a touch of vibrato), supple flow and clear articulation.Though there was wonderful vitality in the performance, Sorrell tapped into the melancholic underside of Handel’s work, even during spirited choruses — sung with rich, robust sound and crisp diction by Apollo’s Singers — and ardent arias. (She made some cuts to keep the evening, with an intermission, to two hours and 15 minutes.)This “Messiah” offered as rewarding a quartet of soloists as you are likely to hear this holiday season. The appealing tenor Nicholas Phan set the mood for the evening in the recitative “Comfort ye, my people,” performed with melting sound and beguiling sincerity, and the rousing aria “Ev’ry valley shall be exalted.”The soprano Amanda Forsythe, in her Philharmonic debut, sang with shimmering sound and tenderness. The formidable bass-baritone Kevin Deas brought chilling fervor to “Why do the nations so furiously rage together,” yet exuded palpable joy in “The trumpet shall sound” (abetted by Christopher Martin’s clarion trumpet playing).Then there was the remarkable countertenor John Holiday, also making his Philharmonic debut, who is having a momentous week in New York. He recently made his Metropolitan Opera debut as Orpheus’s double in Matthew Aucoin’s “Eurydice,” a role he created when the work premiered in Los Angeles in February 2020. (Holiday will sing the final performance of the opera on Thursday, his only night off from this string of “Messiah” performances.)His gleaming voice is natural and full-bodied, even in its top range. And there is almost a baritonal cast to his singing when he dips lower. Beyond his sound, the directness and charismatic intensity of his singing were captivating. An auspicious debut.At the end, the audience, having gone through some rigors to enter the church, was in no hurry to leave, as a hearty ovation went on.New York PhilharmonicThrough Saturday at Riverside Church, Manhattan; nyphil.org. More