Friday Performance Pick – 70

July 2, 2018April 1, 2016 by Hank Reynolds

Eric Whitacre, Water Night

Instead of adding my own commentary to the Friday Performance Pick for this week, I’m going to rely on Carol’s post from this morning and Eric Whitacre’s own commentary in his Ted Talk. After hearing from those two, there really isn’t much left to say.

First the Ted Talk.

One comment: notice that he runs the credits of all the names of the people who participated. The music underneath the credits is the same work arranged for strings.

And Then There's This . . .

Vince Bielski, When Classical Learning Meets Public Education the Dialogue Isn’t Always Socratic. “Classical education, whose name gained traction in the 1980s to evoke the movement’s focus on liberal arts and the Western canon, is struggling to overcome local political opposition.”

Peter Wood, After College: The Coming Cultural Collapse of Higher Education. “Students graduate with a veneer of knowledge rather than a core. An increasingly obsolescent institution has wedded itself to an increasingly noisome cultural stance.”

Anthony Esolen, Heap Songs Upon Their Heads. “We are the most beauty-starved people, I am persuaded, who have ever trod the earth.”

Gregory Wolfe, The Wound of Beauty. “The time has come to bring beauty back, to give it the glass slipper and invite it to the prom.”