News Roundup, April 10, 2025

NEWS ROUNDUP, 4/10/ 2025 According to the press release from the San Antonio Philharmonic, this weekend’s concerts mark the beginning of a long -cherished dream of musical director, Jeffrey Kahane – to place the music of Johann Sebastian Bach at the heart of the modern symphony orchestra’s repertoire, alongside Beethoven, Brahms and Mahler.  The release further points out that despite …

News Roundup, 4/3/2025

The San Antonio Philharmonic’s Classics VIII concert will be conducted by Anthony Parnther, one of the best- known film conductors in the country. He helms recording sessions for manytop feature films and television series, working in collaboration with some of the most prominent media composers in the industry. The concerts will also feature a guitarist identified only as JIJI.  On …

Book Review

Book review: “The Imagined Life” by Andrew Porter Reviewed by Steven G. Kellman             The decades following World War II were the golden age of the campus novel – fiction about the aspirations and agonies of college life. Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim, Vladimir Nabokov’s Pnin, Bernard Malamud’s A New Life, John Williams’s Stoner, and David Lodge’s Changing Places were published …

“Noble Fragments”

Book Review “Noble Fragments” The gripping story of the Antiquarian Bookseller who Broke Up a Gutenberg Bible” by Michael Visontay Reviewed by Steven G. Kellman             At the entrance to exhibitions at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center in Austin, a visitor encounters the institution’s crown jewel – a complete Gutenberg Bible. One of the rarest of bibliophilic treasures, it …

News Roundup. 3,20, 2025

The San Antonio Philharmonic’s Classics VII concert will feature Liszt’s Paino Concerto No.1 with Ukrainian pianist, Illia Ovcharenko, at the piano.  Other pieces on the program are:Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy,” Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from “West Side Story” and Dukas’ “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.” The whimsical and spellbinding tale of Dukas’ “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” is a scintillating miniature masterpiece, made famous …

Art and Innovation in Comfort

ART and INNOVATION in COMFORT, TX: A VISIT to MIXHAUS GALLERY                                                    By Jean Hackett Cara Hines, owner of MixHaus Gallery in Comfort, Texas – about 45 miles from San Antonio – has a vision. “I hope to set Comfort apart as a destination for the arts and creative visionaries in the spirit of Freethinkers who settled here in the …

News Roundup, 3,14,2025

NEWS ROUNDUP, 3/13/2025 The much anticipated “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” concert is taking place this Saturday. The concert features the famed film on a giant high-definition screen, with the San Antonio Philharmonic playing live in the theater the famous score by John Williams. (Feb. 14 at 7:30 p.m. and Feb. 15 at 2 p.m. at the Majestic …