Writing for Goings On About Town these last several years, I've most frequently emphasized noteworthy performances. But given the uncertainty about live events now, my final New Yorker contribution instead spotlights a favorite 2021 recording I didn't get to write about at the time it was released, by JACK Quartet on the Greyfade label. (Click on the image to enlarge it, or hit the link to read the text on the New Yorker website.)
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You can stream a selection from the album, and purchase it in digital or physical formats, on the Greyfade Bandcamp page.
In closing the book on this enjoyable and fruitful collaboration with The New Yorker, I'd like to thank first and foremost Russell Platt, the longtime classical-music listings editor who brought me in initially. Russell's successors – first Fergus McIntosh, then Briana Younger, and finally Sheldon Pearce – were patient, perceptive editors and talented writers, one and all. Thanks, too, to Goings On About Town editor Shauna Lyon, newyorker.com culture editor Michael Agger, and staff writer Michael Schulman (in his capacity as Goings On About Town theatre editor) for unfailingly generous interactions.
Oussama Zahr was a brilliant co-conspirator and, briefly, an excellent supervising editor himself; that we complemented each other extremely well, in terms of tastes and inclinations, was the special sauce during our entire run together. (I look forward to our meeting for the first time in real life, one day soon.)
Last but not least – and certainly not for the first or last time – my abundant gratitude to Alex Ross, a brilliant, consistently engaging writer, and the most gracious, encouraging colleague I've ever had the privilege of knowing.