Mark Swed

The L.A. Phil’s artistic leader has been appointed music director in Paris, where he will join one of the most celebrated opera companies in the world.

With Yuja Wang, Julie Andrews, Common, Katy Perry and an orchestra playing in an empty Hollywood Bowl, the L.A. Phil delivers a gala like none before.

Bernstein had friendly and fraught relationships with U.S. presidents. But his White House musical flopped. Missed was its exploration of race and slavery that’s more timely than ever.

The overdue creation of a Cabinet-level Secretary of Culture would give the country a lift we all crave. Here’s who I think would rise to the challenge.

The 25-part series in which great works of classical music tapped troubled times, in all its complexities, surprised even this critic about how great art endures.

With “Sun Rings,” Terry Riley used NASA recordings from space to tap into our universal hopes — and push the string quartet into new territory.

Messiaen’s divine “Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jesus” (“Twenty Gazes Upon the Child Jesus”) carries the spirit we need now, more than ever.

This week our most essential composer, Ludwig van Beethoven — unless you care to call him Louis van Beethoven, as a new German biopic does — marks what would have been his 250th birthday.

Get ready for the musical equivalent of 250 candles and a year’s supply of cake. Beethoven 250 has brought a bevy of new music and books. Here are the best.

In the quest for better Black representation, orchestras and opera companies are improving diversity in superficial ways. Here’s how they could do better.