After a century of trail-blazing Black musicians across every genre, it’s dumbfounding to discover that clarinettist Anthony McGill is the first African-American principal in the New York Philharmonic. He did have distinguished predecessors in the orchestra: in 1962 the remarkable violinist Sanford Allen became its first permanent Black member, and stayed until 1977.
It’s been 35 years since Tony Kushner’s two-play, multi-hour epic gay soap opera-cum-spiritual meditation was first unleashed on the world in Los Angeles and San Francisco. And it’s been 18 years since director Ivo van Hove unveiled his own raw, stripped-back production with what was then Toneelgroep Amsterdam, now Internationaal Theater Amsterdam.
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