Category: Art

  • Culture Corner

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    An interview with famed vocalist and vocal coach Dorian Holley (Part One of Two) By Bernie Langs Looking over the resume of Dorian Holley, one marvels at the long list of names of the biggest successes in popular music for whom he has served as a back-up vocalist, background singer, or studio recording partner. He…

  • The Peggy Rockefeller Concert Series

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    By Ben DiMatteo Now in its 56th year, The Peggy Rockefeller Concert Series is decidedly unknown to much of the campus community. But those familiar with the program know that some of the most accomplished musicians in the world played Caspary Auditorium as a live rehearsal for Carnegie Hall. Since its inception, the series has…

  • Culture Corner

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    Concert Review: Steve Winwood and Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers at Madison Square Garden, Sept. 10, 2014 By Bernie Langs Suffice it to say I expect a lot from music, including filling the need for a communal experience of substance now that I’ve shed the tedium of liturgical gatherings of the established religions. Not only…

  • For Your Consideration– Ones to Watch, Vol. 2 Edition

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    By Jim Keller This month we examine the leading ladies of the Best Actress race. The category remains ever flimsy—especially with comparison to the number of men competing for Best Actor this year. It is sadly a sign of the times: there are not a lot of leading roles for women in Hollywood. But the…

  • Culture Corner: Chuck Berry and the American Songbook—An Appreciation

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    By Bernie Langs I saw Chuck Berry, the founder of the music genre of rock ‘n’ roll in the 1950s, in concert in the midst of my life’s blur of the mid-to-late 1980s at a fairly small New York City concert venue. He was paired up that evening with Ronnie Wood, the second banana guitarist…

  • For Your Consideration – Ones to Watch, Vol. 1 Edition

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    By Jim Keller With the conclusion of last month’s Telluride Film Festival, it’s time to kick off our three-part “Ones to Watch” series. This year, I’m shaking things up a bit by beginning with the Best Actor race—primarily because there are about 44 men vying for five slots, currently more than in any other acting…

  • Culture Corner: Summer Film Roundup

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    By Bernie Langs By way of introducing the highlights of my experiences with selected movies I watched in the summer of 2014, I am oddly reminded of the Roman Emperor Nero and the infamous popular image of him as the ruler who “fiddled while Rome burned.” The notion of Nero playing the lyre at a…

  • Culture Corner

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    An Interview with Richard Torregrossa, Author of Terminal Life: A Suited Hero Novel and Cary Grant: A Celebration of Style By Bernie Langs  Several years ago, I was checking the blurbs of recommended articles and reviews indexed by the Arts & Letters Daily web site as I do every day. The site recommended a review…

  • For your consideration – Cannes Shakedown Edition

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    By Jim Keller It’s become a regular thing for me to take a bit of a hiatus after May’s Cannes Film Festival. This is largely because there simply isn’t much to write about in the Oscar world, but if I’m one hundred percent honest, it’s nice to have a bit of downtime as the summer months…

  • An Extraordinary Early American in Europe

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    By Susan Russo Ira Aldridge was born in New York in 1807 to free black parents: Daniel, a clerk and preacher, and Luranah Aldridge. Ira was schooled at home until 1820, when at the age of 13, he was enrolled in the African Free School Number Two. In the 1820s in New York City William…

  • Culture Corner – The “Exotic Foreign” of Wes Anderson and Haruki Murakami

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    By Bernie Langs There is much made in some classical and modern philosophies of the concept and ambiguity of what is termed “the other.” In addition, one can find obscure musings on the idea of “the stranger” from the pens of philosophers as far afield in time and thinking as Plato and Camus. I’ve been…

  • Life on a Roll

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          Photos contributed by Elodie Pauwels (http://elodiepphoto.wordpress.com)