Now we must ask ourselves as a nation: If the President of the United States can't launder campaign funds to pay hush money to the porn star he had sex with while his wife was home with their newborn son, are any of us truly free?

This Sunday afternoon, I'll be co-hosting a concert at Tulsa's Philbrook Museum that pairs paintings from their Rembrandt to Monet exhibit with live chamber music by Lili Boulanger, François Devienne, Alexander Glazunov, Mel Bonis, Gabriel Fauré, Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. You should come see it if you can:
https://philbrook.org/calendar/music-on-exhibit-rembrandt-to-monet-2023-04-02/?fbclid=IwAR13dFDWje9M31OWpZWnzHeyEmb6cD8gtHzbG-hxY_ZOeTnyvoX1dUJIReA

Beethoven: Let me provide metronome markings so that future generations will know the exact wishes of a composer they revere as an unassailable genius, if not a veritable god.

Future generations: lol those can't be right.

I think it would really elevate the @vienna_phil's #neujahrskonzert if they took a page from the #9LC at King's College, Cambridge, and commissioned a new (short) dance from a contemporary composer each year.

This is a story I never knew, but it's one everyone should hear: R.I.P. Elayne Jones, an orchestral percussionist who tried to break through the #classicalmusic world's color barrier: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/21/arts/music/elayne-jones-dead.html

I am committed to rebuilding my social media community the old fashioned way: following the fevered premonitions of a psychic, running cross country from the Owsla with a small band of dedicated followers, briefly stopping and then fleeing from one suspicious warren after another, until we finally find a secure new settlement, I grow old and am visited by the Black Rabbit of Inlé

There were many other albums I liked this year, but I felt like these complemented each other pretty well, and should provide anyone with hours (and hours, in the case of the Goebel) of interesting listening.

My rerelease of the year came down to two: I liked the John Adams box set on Nonesuch, but edging it out slightly (because of the diversity of repertoire) was the Reinhard Goebel box set on DG Archiv: https://www.deutschegrammophon.com/en/artists/reinhard-goebel/reinhard-goebel-complete-recordings-on-archiv-produktion-2214

I also really liked Andris Nelsons' Strauss mini-box, with the BSO and the Gewandhaus: https://www.deutschegrammophon.com/en/catalogue/products/r-strauss-nelsons-12607

I had a tough choice for my favorite chamber disc, but when I remembered this one actually came out this year (way back in February), that settled it -- mainly for having all this repertoire in one place: It's the Catalyst Quartet's recording of chamber works by Florence Price: https://catalystquartet.com/albums

Igor Levit has also been on a roll lately; I really enjoyed his new piano disc on the Sony label, "Tristan", with Henze's concerto by that name, plus works by Mahler, Wagner and Liszt: https://www.sonyclassical.com/.../releases-details/tristan-1

When I celebrated the centennial of American composer George Walker this past summer on my show, I didn't have much of his orchestral music to play. The Cleveland Orchestra and Franz Welser-Möst have since helped to remedy that, with this great Walker CD and book on their own label: https://www.clevelandorchestrastore.com/.../george-walker-cd

John Wilson and the Sinfonia of London had a great year, with 5 (!) new releases on Chandos. But my favorite was this disc of rare works by John Ireland: https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%205293

Last week on my radio show, Classical Tulsa, I played a few of my favorite new #classical releases of 2022.

I'll list them here, for discussion, but I should point out: All lists like this are subjective. Mine is based on 1) what I think is representative of the industry right now; 2) what I think my listeners would actually like (or need to hear); and 3) what makes a good one-hour show.

So with that in mind, here goes:

Feeling personally attacked by this insurance ad I keep seeing...

At this point, I'm pretty much only using the bird site to find people's mastodon links. It's becoming the microsoft edge of social media.