Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center at Alice Tully Hall, November 18, 2012
The New York Times, Nov. 22, 2012
Contrary to one slightly waggish comment that came via social media, suggesting that perhaps I was feeling a certain pressure to "popularize" my writing for the Times, let me state for the record that my reference to the Twilight Saga in the opening graf of this particular review was a matter of providence and whimsy, and nothing more.
Tickled as I was to squeeze that timely reference into such a unobvious context, I was a lot more excited to get the brilliantly evocative yet apparently arcane adjective clatterbone into the pages of the Times. My only actual worry here was that the closing "gas giant with satellites" metaphor might be a leap just a little too far into a poetic void, but my copy editor asserted otherwise.
Lastly, my redoubtable colleague and friend David Shengold has politely reminded me that Jan DeGaetani was a mezzo-soprano, not a soprano, though he allows that her career was slightly "before my time" for the most part. He's correct on both counts, though obviously I'm not unaware of Ms. DeGaetani's work and renown, and certainly ought to have remembered her voice type. My explanation, if not an excuse, is that I associate Ms. DeGaetani with a certain quality of brilliance, and also with a student who has continued her exploratory innovations, the soprano Dawn Upshaw.
Still… d'oh…
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