News of important new entries into the blogosphere arrived
today from multiple sources. Alex Ross, whose vital site just turned a spry five years old (congrats!), brings word of a new blog from Philip Kennicott, whose elegant, insightful words are regularly to be found in the Washington Post, where he is Culture Critic. I suspect Philip also continues to maintain an entertaining column in Gramophone but, alas, I can't be sure: my place of work accidentally
allowed my subscription to lapse some months ago, a problem I've yet to
address….

Bryant Manning, more-or-less formerly of Time Out Chicago and currently — hopefully increasingly — with the Chicago Sun-Times, showed us earlier today at Mysteries Abysmal that Lawrence A. Johnson surely does get around. Having successfully launched South Florida Classical Review not quite one year ago, Johnson fired up a new site, Chicago Classical Review,
this morning. Given the nearly identical visual design of this blog and
its older sibling, one suspects a movable franchise in the making.

Also today, Douglas McLennan announced the newest addition to the ArtsJournal blogstellation: Creative Destruction,
by orchestral conductor John Dodson. Doug's post about the new blog
tells the story of a marvelous turnaround at the small, feisty Adrian
Symphony in Adrian, MI, engineered by Dodson and executive director
Susan Hoffman, now with the Cleveland Orchestra. "We've been confined
by who we think we are, and by what we think we are," Dodson's first post concludes. Food for thought.

(Photograph: The fiberglass pig in front of legendary NYC dive Rudy's Bar & Grill, snapped on Saturday afternoon during the Ninth Avenue International Food Festival, immediately posted to Twitter and now borrowed from my TwitPic page.)

Playlist:

The Moody Blues – Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 (Eagle); Lovely to See You: Live from the Greek (Image)

Nas – Illmatic (Columbia)

Cornelius Dufallo – Dream Streets (Innova)

King Crimson -Poplar Creek Music Theatre, Hoffman Estates, IL, June 22, 1984 (DGMLive.com download)

Rolling Stones – It's Only Rock 'n Roll and Black and Blue (Rolling Stones/UMe)

George Frideric Handel – La Diva: Arias for Cuzzoni – Simone Kermes, Lautten Compagney Berlin/Wolfgang Katschner (Berlin Classics)

Bruno Mantovani – Concerto for Cello and Orchestra – Jean-Guihen Queyras, Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Saarbrücken/Günther Herbig; Philippe Schoeller – The eyes of the wind – J-GQ, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France/Alexander Briger; Gilbert Amy – Concerto for Cello and Orchestra – J-GQ, Orchestre de Paris/Gilbert Amy (Harmonia Mundi, due June 9)

Joell Ortiz/DJ Green Lantern – Covers the Classics (free mixtape download via OnSmash)

Claude Debussy – Chansons de Bilitis – Sasha Cooke, Pei-Yao Wang (free download from Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum music library; thanks to Friedrich Kuhlau for pointing out this generous collection)

Anaal Nathrakh – In the Constellation of the Black Widow (Candlelight, due June 30)

UGK – 4 Life (Jive)

George Frideric Handel – Alcina – Joyce DiDonato, Maite Beaumont, Sonia Prina, Karina Gauvin, Kobie van Rensburg, Vito Priante, Laura Cherici, Il Complesso Barocco/Alan Curtis (Archiv)

Ernö von Dohnányi – String Quartets Nos. 2 & 3; Zoltán Kodály – String Quartet No. 2 – Guarneri String Quartet (RCA Red Seal)

Power Tools – Strange Meeting (Antilles)

Emeralds – What Happened (No Fun)

David Lang – The Little Match Girl Passion; For Love Is Strong; I Lie; Evening Morning Day; Again (After Ecclesiastes) – Theatre of Voices, Ars Nova Copenhagen/Paul Hillier (Harmonia Mundi, due June 9)

Jon Balke – Siwan (ECM, due June 23; listen to samples here)

Live Skull – Positraction (Caroline)

Kiss – Alive III (Mercury)

Rapoon – Time Frost (Glacial Movements)