John Adams, born 1947, made the world look at East-West relations in a new light with his ground-breaking opera Nixon in China. First performed in Houston in 1987, the opera took a look behind the scenes of an event of

Following the release of his new CD, featuring concerti for horn, violin, and clarinet, I spend lunch getting to know Franco-Lebanese composer and poet Bechara El-Khoury. Born in Lebanon before moving to France and eventually becoming a French national, his

Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2 Once upon a time, a ballet dancer had a dream of doing a ballet on a classical Greek theme. At the time, he was just a dancer in the Imperial Russian Ballet and

I’m still a little bit scared of Alma Mahler. I can feel her gigantic personality looming over me, transcending the years, inevitably offering some acid-tongued rebuke at my futile attempts to capture this complex and volatile person in writing. When

Having been born, raised and educated in rural Austria ill prepared Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) for the acidic and highly competitive musical environment of imperial Vienna. Retaining his shy and unassuming demeanor throughout his life, Bruckner presented a wide target for

Now, the most famous fight about music in 1913, occurred at the première of The Rite of Spring. Audience in an uproar, fights in the audience, the dancers can’t hear the music for the noise in the hall, Nijinsky futilely