One night in 1983, I went to an orchestral concert with a couple of composer friends. The headline piece on the program was a recent work by an increasingly prominent living composer, and we didn’t care for it at all.

So we responded in the way the situation seemed to call for. We booed — loudly and lustily, making sure the entire hall registered our displeasure.

It’s not easy to tell that story without making my buddies and me sound like jerks, and there’s probably some truth to the charge. But it was also the first and last time that I ever did such a thing, and I can remember quite clearly the mental calculus that went into the decision. Full story.

Joshua Kosman (Datebook) / March 2, 2021

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