Music in Trains

As I read through various reports on Arts this morning, I found a common thread through three articles:

“Love the Art; Hate the Artist?” by John Schaefer

In Israel you still won’t hear the music of Richard Wagner in concert. The music sounds just as glorious there as it does anywhere else, but the Nazi’s appropriation of his music and of some of his anti-Semitic writings make it a painful listening experience for many Israelis who survived the Holocaust and settled there.…

If we remove all the art by artists of bad character from our lives, who are we hurting? Not a long dead composer… We’re just denying ourselves the good—in some cases, perhaps the only good—that these people did.

Don Aucoin of The Boston Globe recently wrote an article in which he explains “How parents can fill the void when schools cut arts and music programs.” In summary:

“The first art to develop is the art of looking.…

The next step is to take them to a museum, so they can see how the pros do it…”

Or, in the case of music specifically:

“The next step is to take the children to a ‘starter show’ like ‘Shear Madness,’ then graduate to ‘Blue Man Group,’ and then on to more challenging fare.”