Writing about Music

John Luther Adams: "Your words are as eloquent and succinct a description of our current musical culture as ever I've read. I admire the clarity of your language and thought."

Marianne Tobias: "A remarkable writer with compelling ideas."

Elodie Lauten: "I very much enjoy your style of writing and wit."

Michael Dellaira: "I very much enjoyed your review. You are a very thoughtful, sometimes provocative, almost always articulate writer. I wish there were more of you writing for New Music Connoisseur!!"

John Palmer: "The first to bring some insight. Your words will stay with me for a long time."

Michael Sahl: "Few writers have tried to square the relation of multimedia, crossover, and opera. One of those few is Barry Drogin."

More...

Barry Drogin has won national and international recognition as an "extremely personal and often amazing" writer about culture. He was on the Editorial Advisory Board of New Music Connoisseur and regularly wrote reviews of newly published scores under the title, "The Score Board." On this website, you will find the following:

• Barry completed a book proposal for a major book about culture, music-theatre and new music (the first draft of the manuscript was completed at the end of 2005). You can view a draft excerpt, "Follow the Money: An Update to Virgil Thomson's 'The State of Music'."



• Barry was on the staff of New Music Connoisseur, reviewing scores, books and other written materials. One review was featured on their on-line edition.



• In 1999, Barry started to collect his various writings about music into a new hypertext book called A Musical Contrarian. Available free over the Internet, it has garnered international praise, It includes:
• "Sealing the Coffin of Twentieth Century Music," a manifesto commissioned for a yet-to-be-published book of essays on the title subject.
• "Recognizing a Third Stream in Performance" and "Happy Endings in Narrative Forms: Hope and the Golden Age of the American Musical Theatre," which have both been published in NewOp readers.
• "Wagner's Music and the Holocaust ," which has attracted the wrath of Wagner-lovers everywhere.



• For the April 2001 issue of NewMusicBox, Barry was commissioned to write a "hyper-history" of American Music Theatre, which he called "The Form Without A Name." The piece is in six parts:
• The eponymous introductory essay
• 1. "Opera: Ain't it Grand?"
• 2. "Musicals: For Profit and Not"
• 3. "Multi-Media: Doctor, is my Lab Work ready?"
• 4. "Music-Theater: The Composer as Performer"
• 5. "New Voices, New Venues, NewOp"
(If the NewMusicBox site is down or inaccessible, you can access a mirror version by clicking here.)


• "Being Your Own Worst Enemy" was published in March 2005 on Kalvos & Damian's Essays by Composers page.

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Last Updated: November 23, 2008