1 -- Last night's Critical Thinking on 98.7WFMT and wfmt.com should be posted soon at wfmt.com for streaming. Our guest was Matti Bunzl, associate professor of anthropology and history at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, discussing his recent pamphlet Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia: Hatreds Old and New in Europe published by University of Chicago anthropologist Marshall Sahlins's Prickly Paradigm Press in conjunction with The University of Chicago Press. A "coffee and" at Julius Meinl to anyone who can successful identify the musical selections we chose.
2 -- As we get the hang of this, we've begun adding features to this site, including the recommended weblogs you'll find on your right. Additional ideas and suggestions are always welcomed.
3 -- Not only did Jean-Yves Thibaudet show off his new Vivenne Westwood tailoring (and an odd new combed-down hairstyle) Sunday afternoon at Orchestra Hall, he also shared in the Academy Award for Music (Score) that night when Italian composer Dario Marianelli won for Atonement. Thibaudet was the pianist for the soundtrack as he had been for Monelli's Oscar-nominated score for Joe Wright's earlier adaptation, Pride and Prejudice. I hear that it sounds like movie music. ;-] Oh yes, Thibaudet also played book 2 of Debussy's Préludes and the Third Sonata, D minor, of Brahms, Op. 5. More on that anon.
4 -- WFMT producer Mark Travis is with the New York Philharmonic in Pyongyang on their controversial visit and spoke live from there with Carl Grapentine on the Morning Program today. Mark is producer and host of tonight's broadcast -- 7 p.m. Chicago time, 98.7WFMT and wfmt.com -- of the historic concert given at the East Pyongyang Grand Theater. Mark is the broadcast producer of The New York Philharmonic This Week, produced and syndicated 52 weeks a year to more than 250 radio stations by the WFMT Radio Network. Go, Mark! Night after Night's Steve Smith is also traveling with the Phil for Time Out New York and the League of American Orchestras' magazine Symphony and has some entries here.
5 -- The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is in New York this week with Pierre Boulez, Susan Graham, and Mitsuko Uchida for concerts at Carnegie Hall last night and tonight. This is the first CSO tour, overseas or domestic (excluding regional run-outs), I've had to miss in ten years. I trust that they'll do fine without me. I reviewed the two programs here and here when they were played in Chicago this month.