United States
Writer and editor, with more than two decade's experience covering music, art, and culture.
I was delighted to discover Ming Smith grew up in my hometown of Columbus, OH. I got to talk to her about her childhood, her time at Howard University, and eventual move to New York where she realized her creative calling.
The sound of Das Lied von der Erde is intimate and transparent; Mahler uses the voice to express his deepest thoughts and emotions in a chamber music-like landscape, making it one of Cooke’s favorite pieces to sing. “Mahler really relates to the mezzo,” says Cooke. “It often feels like it’s autobiographical, and that his voice is coming through the mezzo.”
“My target audience for this work is Black people,” says Francis, 39, who grew up Alief. “That’s not to say my only audience is Black people. If you are open, you can figuratively see yourself in a person who looks nothing like you but has characteristics that mirror some of your own.”
Cover story for the February 2017 issue of Acoustic Guitar. My profile of guitarist Eric Johnson.
A behind-the-scenes look at Meta-Four, Houston's premier poetry slam competition team.
But for Ann, and for the members of her troupe The Divine Darlings, who will strut their stuff in the "Ho Ho Holidays: The Burly Soirée" show on Dec. 11 at 8th Wonder Distillery, the burlesque genre is about more than just garters and a creatively placed feather boa.
Growing up in Poland, classical music is the music that resonated with Masewicz . . . She enrolled in a Polish music conservatory at age four, auditioning with a heartfelt rendition of “I’m Wishing” from the 1937 animated Disney film Snow White. The fact that she didn’t speak any English at the time didn’t prevent her from impressing the faculty. “I sang the whole song in gibberish,” says Masewicz. “But the panel could tell that I had a gift and started me with voice and piano.”
Therapists at one Houston hospital are proving that music heals - and now even former skeptics are singing a new tune.
The variety and sheer number of works on display by El Franco at HMAAC speaks to the richness of Southern life and culture, and all of its crazy, grim and beautiful contradictions, as painting after painting venerates individuals who might not otherwise appear on canvas in a museum.
". . . with a head of gray hair pulled back with a bandana, Modine exudes the confidence of a man unafraid to show his feelings — and willing to stand tall in the face of adversity, including mankind’s propensity for violence, something that was very much on his mind when he received the script for Full Metal Jacket."