Lloyd Schwartz
Lloyd Schwartz is the classical music critic for NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross.
In addition to his role on Fresh Air, Schwartz is the Senior Editor of Classical Music for the web-journal New York Arts and Contributing Arts Critic for WBUR's the ARTery. He is the author of four volumes of poems: These People; Goodnight, Gracie; Cairo Traffic; and Little Kisses (University of Chicago Press, 2017). A selection of his Fresh Air reviews appears in the volume Music In—and On—the Air. He is the co-editor of the Library of the America's Elizabeth Bishop: Poems, Prose, and Letters and the editor of the centennial edition of Elizabeth Bishop's Prose, published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux in 2011.
In 1994, Schwartz was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for criticism. He is the Frederick S. Troy Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Boston and teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing.
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A new installment of the PBS series American Experience centers on the legendary Black contralto, her extraordinary artistry and the important place she holds in the civil rights movement.
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Price, now 93, was the first African American soprano to have a major career at the Metropolitan Opera. Critics and fans agreed that she had one of the most beautiful singing voices they'd ever heard.
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Fitzgerald's warm, yet ultra-cool voice was at the opposite pole of jazz singing from Armstrong's gravelly growl. There's absolutely no reason their voices should blend so effortlessly — but they do.
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Two new CDs of serious music feels just right: Johnny Gandelsman plays violin transcriptions of Bach's Complete Cello Suites, and Kate Lindsey sings arias by Handel, Haydn, and Scarlatti on Arianna.
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Ellen West, a new one-act chamber opera presented by Opera Saratoga, is based on a tragic poem by Frank Bidart, while Poul Ruders' The Thirteenth Child draws on a relatively obscure Grimm fairy tale.
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Maria by Callas weaves together performance clips, home movies, interviews and poignant diary excepts to present an intimate portrait of the singer in her own words.
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Choreographer Bob Fosse and dancer Gwen Verdon light things up in this recently reissued movie version of the musical Damn Yankees. It was the only time the pair danced together on the big screen.
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The Boston Symphony Orchestra's 2017 performance of Ferruccio Busoni's monumental concerto met all the composer's impossible demands. A new live recording of the event is both serious and fabulous.
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Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reads a poem about his late mother, who had Alzheimer's Disease. Schwartz's latest collection is Little Kisses.
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Deveau and the Borromeo String Quartet perform piano concertos by Mozart and Beethoven as chamber music on a new recording. Lloyd Schwartz says the album is "full of feeling and discovery."