In the quiet moments of a hectic wedding day, a soon-to-be-couple clasps hands in a church courtyard. They pray together. The groom is crying. Behind a camera, a girl snaps photos to remind them of this moment again and again. Only a high-school student, this young woman is quietly directing the show as if she’s...
Category: Culture
Monet at the DIA: Framing life around a smudge of suburban snow
Smudges of blue paint like footprints speckle the snow beside a mud-worn path. A traveler in a blue coat, which seems to have been stamped on his torso by a divine finger, ambles forward, proceeding down the muddy trail to leave the town behind. In “Snow at Argenteuil” by Claude Monet, a handful of travelers...
Not your pastor’s bluegrass band
From the rapid pace of Capitol Hill, eight friars’ sensitive harmonies and lovely acoustic instrumentals present a sophisticated knowledge of faith. The Hillbilly Thomists rose to the top ten bluegrass albums of 2017, according to Billboard, along with Alison Krauss’ “Windy City,” and Steve Martin’s “The Long-Awaited Album.” This group of eight friars and two...
Three wind symphony students take on Grand Rapids
On the stage of the Matthews Performing Arts Center, I felt excitement grow among the wind ensemble as our guest conductor stepped onto the podium. He raised his baton, gave us the downbeat, and we began. We had spent the whole Saturday leading up to that point – six hours in total – rehearsing the...
The music of the ’60s: Cohen and Dylan drive
There are a few conversations that music junkies would kill to overhear, and here’s one of them: Dylan and Cohen on a California road trip, reminiscing about the golden days of ’60s rock ’n’ roll. Several weeks before his death in 2016, Leonard Cohen replayed his memory of the conversation for the New Yorker. In...