May 28, 2006
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Allan Kozinn makes a good case in The New York Times that reports of classical music's demise have been greatly exaggerated. The old patterns are changing, that's all: With small new companies putting out recordings, internet deep-catalog shops making nearly everything available, strong sales on iTunes, a surge of interest in early music and new music, and the boomer generation's adventurous ears, this could be shaping to be the best of times,  says Kozinn.  "The nightly offerings in classical music are immensely more plentiful and varied now than during the supposed golden age," he writes. "The wonder isn't that audiences fluctuate from night to night or that empty seats can be spotted. It's that so much competition can be sustained in a field usually portrayed as moribund."

The inventive, imaginative Oakland Opera Theater is staging Anthony Davis' "X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X," which hasn't been performed since its 1986 premiere at the New York City Opera.  Sam Hurwitt has an interview with Davis in the San Francisco Chronicle, and discusses the expected controversy over the performance.  "I mean, I didn't do Martin Luther King's story, I did Malcolm X's story," Davis says. "And it's unabashedly heroic."