Words and Music

From the Vault Dept .: Here’s a look back to the opening concert of Union College’s 2007 season, when pianist Richard Goode burned up the St...

3 July 1989 | Watercolor by Gerian Williams

“ ET IN ARCADIA EGO ” is inscribed on one of the trompe l’oeil stones forming the backdrop to Cato’s encampment in north Africa. “I am in Pa...

What’s for Dinner? Dept .: I made a brief return to the restaurant-review business this week so I could extol an out-of-the-way place called...

COULD IT BE A MASTERPIECE? Is it possible that this thing, fashioned from whole cloth by one or more creative souls, has achieved a rare lev...

From the Recorded Vault Dept .: Back in 1989, we still were looking for significant recordings from the LP era (and earlier) to make their w...

YOU CAN COUNT ON THE BARD MUSIC FESTIVAL for textural extremes. Last Saturday’s programs ran a gamut from a charming sonata for guitar and h...

Glen, NY | 12 August 2015 Photo by B. A. Nilsson

From the Food Vault Dept .: Here’s my account of my first review of Sam’s in Albany, an institution well deserving of its solid reputation. ...

NATURE IS SHAMELESS about offering its beauty, leaving it up to us to interpret the aesthetics. It’s easy to take it for granted—to stop loo...

Provincetown, MA | 3 August 2015 | Photo by B. A. Nilsson

WHEN SAINT CATHERINE ADDRESSES the audience in Jane Anderson’s new play Mother of the Maid , it’s with the easy familiarity of someone verse...

Provincetown, MA | 31 July 2015 | Photo by B. A. Nilsson

From the Musical Vault Dept. : I discovered the King’s Singers in 1982 and continue to admire not only their repertory of Renaissance materi...

From the Fridge Dept. : Fourteen years ago, we visited a Chatham restaurant called Ciao, as described in the review below. It doesn’t seem t...

THE GLIMMERGLASS FESTIVAL is presenting Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide” as its musical-theater offering this season, and it’s an excellent cho...

A recent issue of  Metroland aggregated the thoughts of its various writers about those times when technology seems to have gone too far. I ...

The Long Walk , Opera Saratoga AS BRIAN CASTNER and three of his fellow Explosive Ordnance Disposal specialists are driving back to base f...

From the Vault Dept .: Al Gallodoro was nearly 90 when I saw the concert reviewed below. His amazing career included stints in the orchestra...

The Magic Flute , Glimmerglass Opera, July 10 The Magic Flute is a mess of an opera that defies narrative convention, keeps you guessing a...