Jon Sobel
Journalist at Freelance
Publisher and Executive Editor at Blogcritics Magazine
Writer, editor, critic, musician, songwriter.
Articles
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6 days ago |
blogcritics.org | Jon Sobel
The capstone of my career as a classical pianist was a rushed performance with my high school orchestra of the first movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 15 in Bb Major. Little did I know then that my at-best-middling rendition wasn’t the only thing misrepresenting what Mozart’s own audiences heard during his lifetime. It was also the instruments we were playing – in my case, a modern piano.
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1 week ago |
blogcritics.org | Jon Sobel
Exceptet’s debut album Tree Lines opens with an evocative prog-rock composition by the group’s violinist Sarah Goldfeather. I say prog-rock because that’s very much the flavor of “Mouth Full of Ears,” even if there isn’t a guitar or keyboard in sight. The lyrics make half-sense, like those of many a prog-rock band (Yes fans, I’m looking at you). Goldfeather’s vocals in their high register even remind me of Renaissance’s Annie Haslam. But Exceptet is no rock outfit.
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1 week ago |
blogcritics.org | Jon Sobel
About his 1957 book The Cat in the Hat Theodore Geisel once said, “It is the book I’m proudest of because it had something to do with the death of the Dick and Jane primers.” The vapid “Dick and Jane” reading primers persisted in grammar schools at least until the early 1970s (I know because I was there). And if you’re old enough to remember them, you can get a nostalgic taste of the adorably white brother and sister, at least in name, at We Do the Same Thing Every Week.
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1 week ago |
blogcritics.org | Jon Sobel
We are in a new age of the countertenor. After a long era of obscurity, the presence and popularity of the male mezzo-soprano has returned in force. Ambitious exemplars like Anthony Roth Costanzo and the charismatic countertenors of ensembles like Profeti della Quinta have been raising the profile of this once-common specialty – at one time notoriously populated by castrati – in baroque, classical, and early music circles across the realm of Western music.
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1 week ago |
blogcritics.org | Jon Sobel
“Beethoven and Bluegrass.” If it sounds gimmicky, rest assured it was not. On April 25 Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall hosted composer and bluegrass virtuoso Mark O’Connor, his wife, fiddler and vocalist Maggie O’Connor, and the VegaQuartet, performing music by Beethoven and by Mark O’Connor along with a few cover songs.
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How many squirrels are in Central Park? You wanted to know, didn't you? We did. And now we do! https://t.co/VWO7q8G7Ip
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