conductor

Michael Tilson Thomas leads the San Francisco Symphony, which has been acclaimed for innovative concerts and programming. Tilson Thomas often conducts children’s concerts with the orchestra — and has developed an unusual approach to engaging his young audience.

Earlier this year, conductor Daniel Barenboim surprised Chicago when he announced that he would step down as conductor of the Chicago Symphony in 2006. Barenboim said he could no longer deal with all the non-conducting duties he’d been given — like fundraising. And he said while lots of people complain about the audience disappearing, we […]

As conductor of the New York Philharmonic, he changed the way audiences understood classical music.

Gustavo Dudamel, the 28-year-old who will take over the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is making waves in classical music. Fellow Venezuelan Pilar Marrero went to see “the Dude” in action with some LA youngsters. Marrero reports for La Opinion and Feet in Two Worlds, a project of the Center for New York City Affairs at the […]

Twenty years ago, Leon Botstein started the annual Bard Music Festival. This year the festival focuses on the Viennese modernist Alban Berg. Botstein pitches Berg’s difficult, dissonant work to audiences who normally can’t stand 20th-century music. He tells Kurt that music suffers from “masterpiece syndrome”, which keeps attention off of lesser-known artists — and prevents […]