Alex Ross's Blog, page 6

Trump's assault on the arts

Here is a crushingly long list of organizations and programs whose National Endowment for the Arts grants have been canceled, on the grounds that “funding is being allocated in a new direction in furtherance of the Administration's agenda." The affected groups are desperately seeking alternative funding to maintain their planned programming. They can also appeal the termination notice.

A Timothy McCormack moment

Ryan Bancroft at the LA Phil

The young conductor Ryan Bancroft, a Los Angeles native who has ascended rapidly in recent years and is now based at the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, led the LA Phil last weekend in a sensational account of Nielsen's murderously difficult Fourth Symphony. I adore this piece, but I've managed to hear it live only once, in 1994, when Herbert Blomstedt brought it to the NY Phil. (I missed Alan Gilbert's later rendition with the same orchestra.) That 1994 performance threatened to fall apart in the finale, where different sections of the orchestra must trade off unison lines at breakneck speed. The LA Phil managed those passages more or less flawlessly, as Richard Ginnell notes in a San Francisco Classical Voice review. I'd previously encountered Bancroft delivering a cannily controlled, expressively potent Shostakovich Tenth at the Hollywood Bowl — not an easy undertaking in that venue. Ginell goes on to write: "Bancroft may not have the flashy charisma of Dudamel, but based on this performance, if the LA Phil is looking for deep musicianship from a music director candidate, the orchestra might want to give Bancroft a further viewing." He will be back next season, with Shostakovich and Sibelius.

Ryan Bancroft triumphs at the LA Phil

The young conductor Ryan Bancroft, a Los Angeles native who has ascended rapidly in recent years and is now based at the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, led the LA Phil last weekend in a sensational account of Nielsen's murderously difficult Fourth Symphony. I adore this piece, but I've managed to hear it live only once, in 1994, when Herbert Blomstedt brought it to the NY Phil. (I missed Alan Gilbert's later rendition with the same orchestra.) That 1994 performance threatened to fall apart in the finale, where different sections of the orchestra must execute unisons at breakneck speed. The LA Phil managed those passages more or less flawlessly, as Richard Ginnell notes in a San Francisco Classical Voice review. I'd previously encountered Bancroft delivering a cannily controlled, expressively potent Shostakovich Tenth at the Hollywood Bowl — not an easy undertaking in that venue. Ginell goes on to write: "Bancroft may not have the flashy charisma of Dudamel, but based on this performance, if the LA Phil is looking for deep musicianship from a music director candidate, the orchestra might want to give Bancroft a further viewing." He will be back next season, with Shostakovich and Sibelius.

For David Thomas

Annals of appeasement

"A vitality gap has opened up. The Trump administration is like a supercar with 1,000 horsepower, and its opponents have been coasting around on mopeds. You’d have to go back to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration in 1933 to find a presidency that has operated with such verve during its first 100 days."

                                — New York Times columnist

Gleichschaltung

The word that best describes what the Trump regime is trying to do to Harvard University.

Weill's Threepenny Opera and Love Life

Berlin to Broadway. The New Yorker, April 21, 2025.

A Bach moment

An astonishing, incontestably great new recording from Raphaël Pichon and Pygmalion.

Thought of the day

“Your silence will be considered your consent.”

                        — Laurie Anderson, "Another Day in America"