Dr. Robert Zaller

Music

Of Sacred Spaces and the Right of Protest: The Orchestra’s Tour of Israel

The Philadelphia Orchestra’s just-concluded tour of Germany, Austria, and Israel has been the most controversial in its history. No, visiting Germany, where a resurgent right wing openly invokes the symbols of Nazism, wasn’t the problem. [ Read Article ]
Music

Early and Late Beethoven, with Fauré

The Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, winding down its current season, has saved some of its best for last. The Ébène Quartet, beginning a year-long worldwide tour, plans to record all of Beethoven’s quartets in live [ Read Article ]
Politics

Pay To Play: America in the Middle East Today

Modern American foreign policy in the Middle East was formed by three pivotal events: the determination to control the region’s oil resources through public policy and oil corporations after World War I; the decision by [ Read Article ]
Academics

Outsourcing the Future: How America Has Abandoned Its Commitment to Public Education

America’s retreat from its century and a half commitment to public education has now become a rout. There has not been a greater betrayal of our country in my lifetime. There is no more disastrous [ Read Article ]
Politics

The Arkansas Death Circus

Arkansas: Isn’t that the place the Clintons came from? Yes, indeed. And some of us will remember that the Man From Hope, as Bill Clinton enjoyed being called, suspended his presidential primary campaign exactly twenty-five [ Read Article ]
Art

Shafts of Light, Slants of Dark: Nancy Herman Paintings at the Cosmopolitan Club

Nancy Clearwater Herman is perhaps best known for her large, richly complex quilts and hangings. The present exhibit at the Cosmopolitan Club shows another aspect of her art. The mostly small oil paintings on display [ Read Article ]
Music

A Bruckner First for the Curtis Orchestra

The Curtis Symphony Orchestra concluded its 2018-19 season by doing something it had never done before, namely, Anton Bruckner. There isn’t any easy Bruckner, but the Curtis essayed his last and arguably most difficult work: [ Read Article ]

Free Speech, Propaganda, and the Right To Be Heard

Politics

June 12, 2017 0

Free speech is the most important right we have. The Founding Fathers, understanding it as the prime element in a free society, wrote it into several amendments of the Constitution. The First Amendment guarantees it [ Read Article ]

The Arkansas Death Circus

Politics

May 2, 2017 0

Arkansas: Isn’t that the place the Clintons came from? Yes, indeed. And some of us will remember that the Man From Hope, as Bill Clinton enjoyed being called, suspended his presidential primary campaign exactly twenty-five [ Read Article ]

Politics

Hello, Tyranny: Life in the Age of Trump

February 13, 2017 0

The incessant flow of noise and static from the Trump White House—occupied territory on American soil—is designed, among other things, to conceal the fundamental new reality of our political situation: that we have an unelected [ Read Article ]

Politics

Going Crazy Over Terrorism

October 13, 2016 0

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I got a phone call from my son. He told me to turn on the TV, and I saw the World Trade Center towers burning. Ash, some of [ Read Article ]

Politics

Obama: The Farewell Address You Won’t Hear

January 11, 2017 0

What comes with a new administration is an inaugural speech and a State of the Union address, in which, relieved of the baggage of campaign promises, the new president announces what his (or, someday, her) [ Read Article ]