Classical Life

Excuse me if I’m late to this party, but a thought occurred to me the other day.

I own a smart phone. There’s a newsfeed on it (as opposed to an internet browser, which it also has.) I don’t really use the newsfeed app that much, because mostly it’s filled with story after story (after story) about a certain world leader and the latest hurricanes. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but a man has to know his limitations. On the other hand, the newsfeed app certainly includes stories from excellent news publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, among others.

But there are no arts stories and no reviews. Very little about culture at all, actually, high or low. But a user can customize his newsfeed, of course, though I’ve never bothered. The other day, I bothered. I don’t know, maybe I was bored. So, I did some searching on the ap using “classical music” as a search term and lo and behold found quite a bit. And then when you “like” these articles, or in my case “heart” them, similar stories are supposed to start showing up in your newsfeed.

This morning, there they were. Right below stories on that man with the hair and epic weather was a story about a new play being written about Nadia Boulanger. In my newsfeed. There was also something about classical songs to play at your wedding (so, it’s not perfect) and a classical music review of a concert at the Hollywood Bowl from The Los Angeles Times. I’m impressed.

So, I’m going to keep at it, searching and “hearting” classical music stories and reviews, until my newsfeed is overrun with them, and that face and swirling satellite photos are relegated to a small corner at the bottom. And if every one of you millions of readers devouring this post right now did the same, we could save arts coverage in this country and make the world a better place. The end.