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Posts published by “David Yearsley”

NATO’S Hymn Ain’t Finished Yet

In an April 4th ceremony in the vast and bleak plaza in front of NATO’s $1 billion, 250 square meter Brussels headquarters conducted in the presence of Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and U. S. Secretary…

Sounding Out Renfield

In the movie business typecasting can be as much of a curse for composers as for actors. Marco Beltrami made his name in Hollywood with his score for Wes Craven’s satirical slasher movie Scream back…

Bach Blows

For at least as long as people have talked about the weather, they have made music about it—from rain dances to pastoral symphonies, from the paleolithic powwows to Prince’s Purple Rain. Even if the climate’s…

Falstaff & The Whale

Not a Fat Tuesday, but a Fat Weekend. On Saturday morning the Metropolitan Opera simulcast of Verdi’s last opera, Falstaff. On Sunday night a home viewing of The Whale. Both are all about fatness. The…

Heavy Metal

I spent several summers on my grandfather’s berry farm in the Skagit Valley sixty miles north of Seattle. To irrigate his water-hungry crops, he had drilled a well in the 1950s. The water was conducted…

Springtime for Sebastian

Johann Sebastian Bach’s birthday, March 21st, falls on the first full day of spring, if one calculates that date by mercilessly quartering the calendar. The chronological coincidence is a fitting one: though Vivaldi gets all…

Blinkin’ With Blinken At Oscar’s Big Screen

What’s the difference between an American movie producer and an American secretary of state? The one dreams of winning an Oscar; the other makes sure the awards go to the right global players. American foreign…

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