By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author’s program note. Friend, I suspect you are not up on the all-important words and necessary phrases from the world of croquet. That is scandalous, of course, and you should be ashamed of yourself for the dereliction. Fortunately it can be remedied at once by going to the always helpful Wikipedia, …
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author’s program note. What music is appropriate for the undoubted decline and possible demise of one of the grandest creatures on earth — Ursus maritimus — the polar bear? I have selected Edvard Grieg’s 1867 masterpiece “From the hall of the mountain king”, for this is the story of a race …
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author’s program note. Today is a red-letter day for me… one of the most important days of my life. For such a day nothing short of one of our weary world’s greatest masterpieces, Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” (1824), will do . Please play it before you read this article. You cannot …
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author’s program note. Every year, it seems, the opening date for Christmas marketing creeps forward, adding days, not just hours, to the already lengthy selling season. This year my cadre of Christmas watchers reported seasonal catalog and store sightings as early as Labor Day, September 8 . But you can count …
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author’s program note. I was young then, blessed with that overflowing feeling of high animal spirits and joy to the world. It was 1967, I was in New York City for the first time, about to sail to Europe on the SS Aurelia … The future seemed boundless, was boundless, and …
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author’s program note. I’m going to do something different today, something occasioned by my discovery (compliments of The Boston Globe, September 21, 2011) of Huck Gutman. The theme “music” for this article will be an instrument we all have — the human voice — this time wielded by a master of …
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author’s program note. I live and work in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just steps away from Harvard Sq. This compact area along the MBTA’s Red Line arguably contains the greatest concentration of brain power and technological innovation on earth. I’m here to tell you about a great new idea hereabouts which you’ll want …
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author’s program note. Our first travelers to Massachusetts arrived at Plymouth just in time for Winter, too late for Autumn, specifically trodding on terra firma, December 26, 1620… and were they ever irritated, taking the opportunity to lambast the luckless captain who delivered them so late after a most disagreeable voyage, …
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author’s program note. This is a story about words and a woman who understood the power of words properly used to motivate adolescents, some of the toughest customers on earth. It is the story of Holly Hickler, proud to be a teacher, exhilarated by the challenges of her profession, a model …
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author’s program note. Everyone remembers their first job with, perhaps, a bit of nostalgia and a soupcon of fondness, after the fact. But did you really know what you were doing… and, more to the point, leverage that job and rise high — even in a period of economic dislocations, miseries, …