I had the privilege on Friday night of attending a special event for subscribers to the Orchestra of St. Luke's series at Carnegie Hall.   The orchestra would be recording a concert for radio syndication in their new rehearsal/recording space, the Mary Flagler Cary Hall at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music, an extraordinary building at 450 W. 37 Street (near 10th Avenue) that has been adapted both for classical music and – on higher floors … <Read More>

I seem to be having a very lucky concert season, with few complaints to raise about the quality of the concerts I've been attending.  The luck continued this weekend with superb performances by The Tallis Scholars, directed by Peter Phillips, in an all-Victoria concert on Saturday night (April 2) at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, and by the Quatour Eb

The Court of Appeals, New York State's highest court, has unanimously affirmed jury verdicts for two New York City Police Department officers who claimed that they suffered retaliation for opposing discrimination against another officer who was perceived as being gay.  The jury had awarded Lori Albunio $579,728.83 and Thomas Connors $588,113.45, plus attorneys fees.  The case is Albunio v. City of New York, 2011 Westlaw 1157706 (March 31, 2011).

Albunio was commanding officer of the … <Read More>

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces vacated a guilty plea to a charge of sodomy under Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), finding that the court martial trial judge did not engage in the required colloquy with the defendant necessary for an informed guilty plea. United States v. Hartman, 2011 WL 904218 (March 15, 2011). As a result of the guilty plea, Hartman was sentenced to a bad-conduct … <Read More>

This isn't my normal beat, but my regular concert-going companion and I are big fans of Ra

The American Symphony Orchestra is entering the home stretch in its two-year project to present all of the Beethoven Symphonies as part of its Classics Declassified series presented at Symphony Space on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.  Sunday they did the 7th Symphony, which unfortunately I had to miss due to a conflicting engagement, but the friend to whom I gave my ticket reported having a wonderful time.  The format of these programs is … <Read More>

Last night I attended a performance of The Wooster Group's version of Tennessee Williams' play, "Vieux Carr

Last week I participated as a speaker in a continuing legal education presented by the LGTB Law Association Foundation of Greater New York and the LGBT Affinity Group at Davis Polk, presenting a review of major LGBT legal developments during 2010.  My co-panelists were Melissa Goodman of the New York Civil Liberties Union and Vice Dean and Professor Edward Stein of Cardozo Law School (Yeshiva University).  I prepared a summary extracted from the newsletter I … <Read More>

Yesterday afternoon was frigidly cold in New York City, coinciding with 5 Borough Music Festival's collaboration with the Cultural Arts Series at St. Mary's RC Church in Long Island City presenting Quicksilver, an early music performance group, in a program titled "Stile Moderno: The New Science of Music In Italy."   "New" is a relative term when speaking of music, of course, and in this case the reference was to the new baroque developments that displaced … <Read More>

Two concerts I attended recently were very different but both really excellent in their own ways.

On Thursday, December 2, I attended the New York Festival of Song's presentation titled "Queering the Canon" at Merkin Concert Hall in New York City.  Although I've been reading about their programs for years, and have some recordings that seem to have emanated from their activities, this was my first time actually attending a NYFOS presentation, and I was … <Read More>