Genius and villainy. Are the two incompatible? Hard work and lifelong dedication versus careless talent, and mediocrity malevolently overpowers brilliance. What a plot! In reality, Salieri was probably a nice guy, who got lucky and got a cushy job working for the Duke … with a handsome salary… benefits… a nice retirement to look forward to. And here you go, young brilliant Mozart effortlessly gives birth to one masterpiece after another, freelancing for his countless female students, countesses, Dukes, courts and god knows who else. If nothing else, Salieri should have felt guilty, even without poisoning Mozart, for taking such a cozy place...

“Can I stop by now?” was a question on the phone in late June. “Sure, I am home.” Sharon Romer, Vice President of the MBAW Board, walked in with her recently adopted little shih tzu and a beautiful hand made pottery dish.  “This is your early birthday present,” she said.  My birthday is in November, and this was June.  I felt that something was off. “What is going on, Sharon?” And the news was shocking… she had metastatic cancer in her brain, and not much time left. How do you react on the news like that?????????  This is something we are all afraid of, and when it happens to someone close to you, what do you do?????????  What do you...

It turns out that India has classical music! I was extremely ashamed that after studying music for almost all of my life, I did not know India has Classical music. The Western European tradition that gave the world Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Rachmaninov, Copland (and I can go on forever with that list), is not alone in the world! WHAT a revelation! Even back in Russia, then part of the insular Soviet Union, long before I met anyone of Indian descent, I was fascinated with Indian Culture. It started with young Buddha in Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha, then the beautiful poetry of Rabindranath Tagore, and more recently, The Inheritance of Loss, by...