Anne Midgette’s successor has been named.
He is Michael Andor Brodeur. The Post calls him ‘a writer, critic and editor who has worked most recently at the Boston Globe.’
But not primarily in music. He starts next week.
Ring any bells?
Rudolph Vrbsky, principal oboist of the National Symphony…
The British bad-boy violinist, 68 next week, has…
The King has sent a message of support…
The BBC has parked a new interview with…
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Well, Barack Obama gets replaced by Donald Trump. It’s a trend.
Wouldn’t expect much classical coverage.
Name something Obama did in his 8 years when you have a couple seconds.
Pulled the country out of its deepest recession since the Great Depression, brought universal health care to the country, repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
Authorized the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden. There are many more but you asked for one.
And then spent the next several years bragging about it like he did something other than saying, Yes, after countless others had done the actual work. And that did not go unnoticed by the people who actually did the heavy lifting.
Passed health care
Saving the U.S. and world economies.
You might not agree with them all, or even know what some of them are, but here’s a start:
-Passed health care reform
-Expanded health coverage for children
-Wall Street reform (Dodd-Frank Act)
-Negotiated blockade of Iran’s nuclear weapons program
-US commitment to the 2015 Paris Agreement (Global Agreement on Climate Change)
-Eliminated Osama bin Laden
-Greatly reduced US combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan
-Injected US$62 billion+ to assist auto industry
-Reduced veteran homelessness by 47%
-Enacted government surveillance reform
-Strengthened women’s right to fair pay (Ledbetter Act)
-Expanded overtime pay
-Reduced the federal deficit
-Improved food safety (Food Safety Modernization Act)
-Improved school nutrition
-Supported federal recognition of same-sex marriages
-Reversed Bush torture policies (“enhanced interrogation”)
-Limited power plant carbon emissions
-Boosted fuel efficiency standards
-Expanded wilderness and watershed protection
-Clean energy investment
-Normalized relations with Cuba
-Protected DREAMers from deportation; allowed work permits for qualified persons
-Established internet neutrality
-Expanded Pell Grant funding to low-income students
-Passed Fair Sentencing Act
-Revived Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division
-Trimmed and reoriented missile defense program
-Initiated the biannual Nuclear Security Summit
-Secured removal of chemical weapons from Syria
-Protected LGBTQ Americans from employment discrimination
-Expanded broadband coverage
-Sotomayor & Kagan nominated and confirmed for US Supreme Court
-Rebuilt and fortified the Gulf coast post-Katrina
Yes, but you obviously missed the tRumpian subtext here by Mr Guest. Notwithstanding your foregoing list, Obama accomplished these things while being black.
I didn’t miss the subtext, just thought Mr/Ms Guest might’ve overlooked a few things while being biased.
Note: Not that melanin matters, but Obama accomplished these things while being half-black and half-white.
Or you could say this is absurd as a community organizer becoming president.
“Or you could say this is absurd as a
community organizersenator becoming president.”FTFY.
A first term senator who was campaigning for president within a couple years of entering the senate.
You probably think he deserved the Nobel Prize.
Well Barry, as Donna Brazile recently told Ronna McDaniel…
You probably wouldn’t believe me if I said they gave it to him for no apparent reason.
Also: first-term senator = not really a senator. Duly noted.
I’m looking forward to his writing and won’t judge until I see some of his work. A small sartorial suggestion: Maybe ditch the bow-ties – not a good look if you’re representing a field known for its stuffiness and nerdy qualities (though the mustache is fine; time to reclaim it from John Bolton).
I agree about the tie, but combined with the leather jacket it works.
At his age and with his build, the leather jacket is strike 2.
It would be interesting to see examples of his embroidery work?
As long as he’s not a novelist too… 😉
Who needs critics?
Frankly, no one, but it seems to be the only way performances are reported on.
As long as Barack Obama’s name has come up, I would be interested to know how many operas and classical concerts he attended during his years as president.
Not that many, I suspect.
Then why don’t you look it up? Personally, that’s not really my main concern when voting for a political candidate, except, of course, the Minister of Operas and Classical Concerts.
Couldn’t be much worse than Midgette’s dreary downer PC input.
Couldn’t they find Mr. Dwarfe to replace Ms. Midgette?
The very able Matthew Guerrieri is doing coverage of the DC clasical beat as I type. There would be no need to replace him.
What’s a “tested critic”? One who has been in the trenches of Bayreuth and came out alive? One who has crossed paths with Domingo and didn’t get grobed?
All these Obama haters boil down to one thing: this Harvard trained lawyer, professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago, prefers American R&B and jazz to European opera and classical music.
The day y’all can win a debate against him on any topic of your choosing, including classical music, is the day y’all can continue to spout your stupidity here.
Reminds me of something his former senior colleague, who has become his principal adversary on public legal issues, said about him: “All these years on the law faculty, he never came up to me to discuss my work”
One became President, the other became a retired professor.
All envy and bitterness.
All hagiography built on the rhetorical equivalent of Potemkin villages.
How is it that on this page, musical discussion inevitably leads to unwanted and unsolicited opinions of the American executive? How hard is it to keep it to music? Such digression just ruins the conversation. WTF is wrong with some of you people? I will happily talk music endlessly and keep my politics to myself. Anyone care to join me?
I am certainly with you. But it is, I think, not commonly known that right-wing trolls are not random individuals in all cases. The truth is that hordes of ’em are organized, coordinated, share a method, and will intrude in any venue that gives them an opening, as not a few SD posts do. I left what may be the largest site of them all, Care2 with circa 55 million members serving as an umbrella group for any and all good causes, i.e., people fighting
animal abuse, environmental destruction, people trafficking, domestic abuse, inequality, etc., etc., causes which it would seem the trolls love to hate. Said trolls wreaked havoc in comments, targeting commenters and using a site weakness to get them expelled. And so, expect them on any site. This one has a load of regulars who are here for the politics, using the term broadly. Note that NL encouraged it on this post with his “Ring any bells?” I must suppose he had Trump in mind, which for the trolls is an invitation to attack Obama, which, indeed, is one of Trump’s own ploys. Hence the mess above. The bell I heard was NL tinkling away on this blog, given that Brodeur’s background as a journalist is NL’s own, though I don’t have any reason to think that Brodeur has been as battered as NL and SD have been for certain offenses, musical and otherwise.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelbrodeur76/
He says he is a musician and wrote music criticism for the Boston Phoenix, essentially a formerly underground advertising rag. It would seem they would have found someone with better chops. That said, based on his experience, the criticism may be from hell, but it will be well written.
Anyone who describes the Boston Phoenix as an “underground advertising rag” is either totally ignorant or just a troll. The Phoenix was an alternative weekly that did quality reporting (they broke the church sex abuse scandal before The Boston Globe) and they had a particularly distinguished arts section. Their classical music critic, Lloyd Schwartz, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his work on the paper. And there is a long list of other distinguished and successful writers who started there. So if you mean to use Brodeur’s time at the Phoenix as some sort of put down you are, as I said, either very ignorant or just a troll.
Ridiculous comments. The WACompost is a progressive paper and accordingly views western art music with the disdain and the product of “fill in the blank” but make sure white, eurocentric and oppressors are included in the list. The last good writer the Post had was Tim Page and he was fired for political incorrectness
He definitely has expert knowledge of electronic music and opera. A little bird tells me that he has written for Parterre Box under a pseudonym.
His real test is whether he will let Francesca Zambello coast on her (overrated) reputation or will he shred her to pieces?
Well, he was an assistant editor of a latterly tabloid-format newspaper, also said paper’s Arts critic, and a freelance writer on the Arts. So I do hear a bell, for apart from the fact that Brodeur does have an M.F.A., he sounds like a blogger, albeit most of all like one who was tested and found to be sorely wanting by some, while Brodeur seems to do quite well.