Professor Carol
“Every performance is a premiere.” These words of wisdom came from our SMU orchestra conductor David Milnes, now conductor at UC Berkeley. He was responding to an interviewer’s question as to whether it was tedious year after year to teach the core repertoire that music … Read more
If your Advent wreath has the traditional set of three purple candles plus one rose, then light that rose candle today! We’ve arrived at the third Sunday of Advent. Whoosh, that went quickly, yes? Advent’s third Sunday, known as Rejoicing Sunday, occurs between December 11th … Read more
We’ve featured the Moravian Star more than once in the course of the calendar. I find them irresistible. Last year I reported the excitement of buying a new star to replace the tattered one I’d had since the 1980s. The prospect of getting a new … Read more
I’m writing on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving while gazing directly at a ridge of snow-covered Alps. The sun is setting in a blaze of white-and-black glory here in Interlaken, Switzerland, the site from which the Holiday Market Tour begins, my last Smithsonian Journey of the … Read more
If you are getting our Weekly Digest, then you will start receiving the Advent Calendar each day beginning December 1. But what about your friends? Maybe the daily essays that you have come to enjoy would brighten up their holiday preparations as well. If so, … Read more
The words “new music” began to instill fear in listeners at the turn of the 20th century. Experiments in radical new styles puzzled the majority of concert audiences across the so-called classical world. These were the very people whose patronage supported orchestras, recital series, and … Read more
My MacBook crashed last night. More accurately, the screen went dark after some emailing and would not turn back on. That’s not technically crashing, right? A disc drive crashes. A computer that won’t turn on is just not working. Yet “not working” seems old-fashioned as … Read more
This week has flown. It seems just yesterday that I asked Hank to search out art for last week’s essay about the possible demise of the key. (As usually, he found terrific paintings, do you agree?) So here I am in Amsterdam, hours away from … Read more
“He knew it was a key, but he didn’t know how to use it.” That comment, voiced by a woman on my tour, has stayed on my mind and provokes today’s essay. Working as a professor on tours allows me to spend significant time with … Read more