October 2018 Brian Sewell is one of those English national treasures that doesn't export well, like unpasteurized cheese.  The problem in Sewell's case is the universe of reference he inhabited.  If one thinks of England from the standpoint of "high culture" it's really a very small place.  A handful of luminaries occupies the cultural firmament that has much of the "old boy" element about it even now.  There's only one firmament, as well -- in [...]

October 2018 The difficulty women composers have faced over the course of history surpasses my ability to imagine as it must have been in lived experience.  Music, curiously enough, has remained one of the most persistent bastions of old boydom to the point that even today one scans the field straining for signs of famous female composers.  For an overview of women composers by time period, check out the list (here) by Oxford Music Online.  [...]