From the category archives:
Bellini: I don’t mean to panic, but WHERE is Roger? He is such a sweet boy and I so enjoyed his posts on his blog. Especially when he let’s us come back and say a few words. Berlioz: I always thought that I would know, if any dead composer would know, where Roger is but […]
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This year I was asked by Drew McManus (whose blog, Adaptistration is widely read) to contribute to a website and initiative called “Take a Friend to the Orchestra.” Various writers, bloggers, and critics have contributed to it over the years. My post has just appeared. Composer, professor, Chair of the UCLA Department of Music, music […]
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Rufus has been promising us a solo piano album since before his Judy phase. Perhaps this new one will be it. His website announced the album officially yesterday with an interesting playlist. The album will be called “All Days Are Nights: Songs For Lulu” and no, I have no idea who Lulu is, except an […]
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I was greatly saddened to see the passing of Kate McGarrigle, mother of Rufus and Martha Wainwright and sister of Anna and Jane. I thought her cancer was in remission but evidently it returned. She touched many lives and helped shape the aesthetic of one of the great songwriters on the planet, Rufus Wainwright. Like […]
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I have a confession to make: I didn’t care much for Rufus Wainwright’s last album “Release the Stars.” With some time between and some Rufus vacation, I returned to the music, able to listen again with fresh ears. Much of the RELEASE music is on the live album, “Milwaukee at Last” just released as a […]
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I struggle writing my book analyzing songs by Rufus Wainwright because I keep forgetting who I am writing the book for. I simplify the language so that regular music lovers can appreciate it, but then I address issues that are more appropriate to graduate music analysis seminars for composers or music theorists. What is it […]
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Having finished my composition projects for the summer, I am finally returning to finishing my book on Rufus Wainwright. Having bought Robert O. Gderdingen’s terrific publication “Music in the Galant Style” I have found the book format that I’d like to have for my book: one with relatively large type, but most importantly, a hardback […]
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My Dear Rufus I heard your preview aria from your new opera and am quite pleased at your new direction. Might I remind you to please not be overly influenced by Philip Glass, and his habit of getting “stuck” in one register when composing for the keyboard. Look at the piano music I have written […]
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Emma Lew Thomas came back from Germany aglow with Rufus Wainwright and Robert Willson’s collaboration on 25 Shakespeare Sonnets. Nothing has been released to date, so, sniffing around YouTube I found a collection of sonnets in progress, as well as a preview from a Berlin TV news show. I threw in the Bacharach collaboration for […]
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Dear Rufus I am so proud and happy for you and your recent compositions. I heard your new Shakespeare Sonnets–they remind me of some of my own songs. You struggle with a desire for an old-time, folky sense of harmony fighting with being more harmonically adventurous. Meld the two my boy. I have avoided sitting […]
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