“It’s been a long time since I rock and rolled”

The Kennedy Center Honors were broadcast on tv recently. This year the honorees were Bill T. Jones, Oprah Winfrey, Jerry Herman, Merle Haggard, and Paul McCartney. (Notice that three of them are songwriters!)

As Sir Paul’s music was being performed on stage, the camera cut to the audience and I noticed Renée Fleming in the audience, and she was rocking and rolling and looking like she was having a great time. In short, she was having fun. I thought, “that’s something classical music really needs– the ability to just have fun.”

You never see an audience at a classical music in united rapture of one sort or another, yet you see this in pop music concerts all the time.

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