I wish you would have insisted...
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Essay
I think we all want to come out of this undifferentiated sea of snackable, viral content, back and forth messages, contextless tweets, and seemingly meaningless work tasks, and move in the direction of books, records, marathons, no-tech camping trips, meditation retreats, long form journalism, 5000-piece puzzles, baseball, writing cabins, undistracted 2-hour coffee with a friend, and of course a night at the symphony or theater…. So in that context, though I hate to use a cliché, I think we need long form music—classical being one example—now more than ever, in this one particular way:
Princeton musicologist Elizabeth Margulis and her colleagues convincingly provide strong and subtle evidence that the claims that music is the universal language remain, at best, significantly overstated, just as much as they were when Mehr et al published their most recent rehearsal in 2019.
“Some changes take centuries to reveal themselves.”
— Joy Harjo
…for composer Scott Joplin, who was born in 1968 in Texarkana (or maybe Marshall?), Texas, this wasn’t an intellectual debate, this was his life.
…it is time to finally and fully celebrate the vibrant history of all women and all persons of color who have been the creators and performers of some of music’s greatest riches as a regular part of the concert going experience. We must endeavor to honor Florence Price as a pioneer and secure her place in the musical canon through a rigorous exploration of her music and a zealous advocacy for her legacy.
Just Do It.