Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 244
•
Trim: 6½ x 9¼
978-1-4422-3454-3 • Hardback • July 2014 • $63.00 • (£48.00)
978-1-4422-3455-0 • eBook • July 2014 • $59.50 • (£46.00)
Donald Vroon has served as editor of The American Record Guide since 1987, and he has authored many hundreds of essays and reviews that have been published in its pages. He has served as a judge for piano competitions and as a guest lecturer for orchestra executives.
Introduction
Essay 1: Elitism
Essay 2: Education & Culture
Essay 3: Don’t Educate Us; Entertain Us
Essay 4: Fun
Essay 5: Fads and Trends
Essay 6: The Romantic Art
Essay 7: Orchestra Finances
Essay 8: The New and News
Essay 9: Contemporary Music
Essay 10: Airheads
Essay 11: Marketing and Image
Essay 12: Marketing Idiocy
Essay 13: Marketing and Its Discontents
Essay 14: Seeking Out the Best Things in Life
Essay 15: Multiculturalism
Essay 16: Later: Black Musicians and Marketing
Essay 17: Attracting a Young Crowd
Essay 18: The Land of the Obvious
Essay 19: On Spiritual Matters
Essay 20:Attentiveness and Judgment
Essay 21: Attentiveness II
Essay 22: Absorption
Essay 23: Feeling
Essay 24: Does Quality Have a Future
Essay 25: Performance Practice
Essay 26: Aesthetics and Criticism
Essay 27: PPP and True Authenticity
Essay 28: PPP II
Essay 29: Cultural Suicide
Essay 30: Cultural Suicide 2
Essay 31: The Golden Age
Essay 32: The Nostalgia Trap
Essay 33: Surtitles
Essay 34: The Death of Service
Essay 35: Distribution
Essay 36: Browsing
Essay 37: Is the Internet the End of Records?
There’s no denying that [the author] cares passionately about classical music, to the bottom of his heart. His ideal is for performances to be deeply felt, truly personal, and movingly expressive. For that, I’ll keep reading ARG, admiring the tenacity with which its editor defends the art we music lovers can’t live without.
— Fanfare Magazine
Don Vroon writes trenchantly and often provocatively on a wide range of subjects, from classical music and recordings to problems with the post office, computers, the airlines, and life in general. You may not always agree with him, may even be offended at times, but he will never bore you.
— John Canarina, conductor and author of Philharmonic: A History of New York’s Orchestra
Donald Vroon’s uncompromising commitment to excellence is the touchstone for all of his editorial essays. His honesty, humor and courage will require every reader to reassess formerly held opinions and to examine each topic in a provocative new light.
— JoAnn Falletta, music director, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra
Don Vroon is a fascinating critic, whose analyses are always fresh and come from a very strong personal point of view. Reading him is always enlightening and challenging.
— John Nelson, former director of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Visionary author of I, Human and Matrix of the Gods
I have read Donald Vroon's "Critical Convictions" with unflagging interest for the past twenty- five years. These bi-monthly essays are, by turns, brilliant, infuriating, informed, irreverent, and opinionated, but, above all. they are passionate and independent-minded. Vroon has the audacity to believe that culture matters. It matters enough for him to challenge conventional opinion and reject the lazy group-think that oppresses the contemporary arts. It is good to have the best of these bold and original pieces finally gathered together.
— Dana Gioia, former Chairman for National Endowment for the Arts