“…Yet the dialogue surrounding the subject of identity contains many pitfalls. Paradoxically, the individual can get lost in the heated conversation that inherently arises around the topic. Oftentimes, that discourse becomes reductive…Reduced to our pronouns, our race, our political affiliation, our religion, our nationality, or whatever category becomes the focus, the individual is blended into the oblivion of a colored bar on a graph or section of a pie chart…”

“During last night’s episode of Heard Over The Piano, Sasha Cooke spoke a bit about the singer’s stigma of being a ‘good musician’. While that initially sounds like a compliment, early on in her career she had the impression that many believe that ‘being a good musician’ was really a euphemism for ‘not a good singer’…”

I was first drawn to Britten’s music partly because of the lifelong romantic partnership that inspired him to write all of this incredible music for the tenor voice...The idea that love between two men could produce such incredible beauty still inspires me to this day, and I feel so privileged to be able to sing Britten’s music as much as I do. It’s a testament to me about how much representation matters, and how art combined with living openly can change lives for the better...save lives, even…

Even before beginning work on the Emerging Voices project a couple of years ago, I had a strong internal reaction whenever the subject of identity came up, especially in the way it has with the recent intense waves of nationalism and the racial bigotry often associated with it…

The United States underwent a radical cultural shift in 1917 when the nation decided to abandon its neutral stance and enter World War I on the side of Allies. America’s significant population of German immigrants and their descendants, which had been easily able to assimilate into American life…

The private salons of the Belle Époque presented important and serious music on a par with what could be heard at the larger public venues in Paris. These salon programs were not restricted to chamber music: they often included pieces on a much grander scale, at times with full orchestras and choirs and even operas…

The waves of nationalism that had surged throughout Europe during the years of the Belle Époque, and reached a peak of ferocity in World War I, came to a pivotal point with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919. The division of Eastern Europe was one of the major topics of the treaty negotiations, as the three empires…