Out on the street, I know how to hide. I move quick, flickering from pub to traffic signal under the yellow glow of streetlights and the muffled sounds of bass pulsating out of salt-caked Honda Civics and Ford Explorers. A blast of icy winter air whipping my face. Stress and anxiety is soldered into this […]

I never shut up about music. The great rock records, the classical symphonies and sacred masterworks of history all stand as towering monuments, every bit as immortal and important as the dazzling works of literature, architecture, art, theatre and film. These are the better angels of our nature. They tell the human story—our resplendent kindness […]

Our classics and great traditions are a corpse that we resurrect every time we engage with them. If neglected, they remain a corpse—rotten, dead, forgotten—to our eternal detriment. The collected wisdom of the ages, disposed with like so much refuse. When engaged with properly, they are made new and live once more to illuminate the […]

Chris Cornell’s work has always been soaked in death. The first time I caught a glimpse of the guy, he was lurching around on a cloudy beach with Eddie Vedder in the video for Hunger Strike, the lead single off Temple of the Dog—a tribute album dedicated to the memory of Cornell’s friend and ex-roommate, […]

The Mass is no light listening. It’s widely considered the crowning achievement of Western Music and one of the greatest works of art ever accomplished. It’s older than the United States—though it wasn’t performed in its entirety until 1859, over a hundred years after its completion.

It happens to me more than I’d care to admit. I’ll be walking down the street — usually down to the bike path I run on — I have a Bach violin concerto pumping in the headphones and sure as shit, I start to shed tears. I’ve learned my lesson. I usually wear sunglasses when […]

Right around my early twenties I began to get a bit overwhelmed with the feeling that I didn’t know anything. I was haunted by the urge to grow as a person, especially intellectually. I began to load up on literature, physical exercise and classical music. I had always felt a deep attraction to classical music and sadly, it’s not […]