lies like truth

Rocky Mountain High

Chloe Veltman — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 21:26:03 +0000

It’s official: I’m moving to Denver to launch and head up Colorado Public Radio’s brand new arts desk. First day on the job — July 17th. Exciting times. Here and below is the press release issued by the station, which came out today: Colorado Public Radio Hires Award-Winning Arts Reporter to Lead New Arts Bureau [...]

Monday Music

Chloe Veltman — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 20:52:20 +0000

I am in England, having a bit of family time before life, as I know it, does a total summersault in July. This morning, I found myself sitting with around 50 people, most of them retired and female, in Canterbury’s Salvation Army headquarters, singing old-fashioned pop hits and folk songs. My mum sings with this [...]

Hair and Bones

Chloe Veltman — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 13:26:01 +0000

It was surreal going from fawning over a lock of Beethoven’s hair yesterday afternoon to running through a park scattered with thousands of artificial bones this morning. The lock of hair (given the stamp of authenticity by virtue of a document, written in now-faded ink, by Beethoven himself) is one of the many curiosities stashed [...]

Last Hurrah

Chloe Veltman — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 14:08:57 +0000

My first ever visit, yesterday evening, to see a production at The Folger Theatre in Washington DC – Twelfth Night – happened to coincide with the very final performance of the present season. Outside the venerable building in Capitol Hill, I overheard members of the company discussing post-performance party plans. In retrospect, the whole situation [...]

Nicholas Alexander Brown and the Library of Congress Chorale

Chloe Veltman — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 13:52:22 +0000

When Nicholas Alexander Brown was walking down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC yesterday afternoon following a lunchtime concert he had just conducted at The Library of Congress’s genteel Coolidge Theatre, two young women called out to him from outside a café to congratulate him on his success. I wasn’t surprised: Brown is the sort of [...]

An English Play, An Irish Play, And An American Musical

Chloe Veltman — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 17:58:01 +0000

I hesitate to draw conclusions about the sensibilities of entire nations from seeing three plays over the course of a weekend, but it strikes me that the trio of productions I just experienced — a desperately dark Irish play, an English comedy with a hard-hitting underbelly, and a resolutely optimistic American musical — kind of [...]

Crowdsourcing…A Drinking Song

Chloe Veltman — Fri, 31 May 2013 14:32:59 +0000

Wednesday evening saw the latest incarnation of Drinking Songs: A Night Of Beer And The Music That Goes With It, an interactive live event that pairs beer tastings with specific songs as a means to tell the story of the close relationship between beer culture and singing culture through the ages. I produced and hosted [...]

It’s All Business At The MusicTech Summit

Chloe Veltman — Wed, 29 May 2013 16:11:32 +0000

The San Francisco MusicTech Summit is the place to go if you want to find out things like how to make sense of the murky licensing laws surrounding music distribution in our digital age, how to engage the community of fans around a band or artist and where to find the best open source audio [...]

A Salon on Franconia Street

Chloe Veltman — Mon, 27 May 2013 18:50:08 +0000

Private homes have long been the locus of some of the most interesting arts experiences, from providing a backdrop for the debut of Schubert song cycles to honoring the work of the New York-based experimental theatre company Banana Bag and Bodice. The reasons for this are diverse: Private homes allow for art to be seen [...]

Woolf and Weiwei For Freedom

Chloe Veltman — Thu, 23 May 2013 16:53:29 +0000

The new song by the Chinese artist Ai Weiei, “Dumbass,” seemingly has little in common with “Craftsmanship,” a talk given in 1937 by Virginia Woolf, a newly released recording of which is being touted as the only known imprint of the British author’s voice. It’s fascinating, however, to listen to both recordings side by side. [...]