The Latest Breaking News from Bach

From gentle awakening to explosive fanfare, duelling pianos to one chill lone voice, expand your horizons with a month’s worth of classical ear-openers

I’m often the victim of a terrible misunderstanding: people who hear me talk think I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth, growing up in some swanky pile where we spoke French at teatime while Grandma played Bach on the harpsichord.

On a hilltop about 95 miles west of Chicago grow plant species that have been there for hundreds, if not thousands of years. The soil is sandy, so when the surrounding lowlands were used for agriculture, the hill remained untouched. From that vantage point, Nachusa Grasslands sprawls below with sections…

CHICAGO — The new Cate Blanchett film “Tár” is no issue movie. It has, however, brought a lot of rarified and/or unfashionable issues back into the spotlight: symphony orchestra politics; the cost of obsessive artistic ambition and devotion to a calling; and, for writer-director Todd Field, the challenge and allure…

It's not until an hour into "Tár" that we see the title character — a classical conductor known the world over as Lydia Tár and played by an unimprovable Cate Blanchett — do what she was born to do. It's an astonishing performance nestled inside another: In one shot, Lydia…

Hello, Christmas.

German pianist and conductor who brought exceptional sensitivity and lyricism to his performances

Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker creates a revelatory response to Bach, while a gala celebrating the dance legend is full of bravura dancing

The Belgian choreographer’s interpretation of the great keyboard work is a rich, carefully crafted essay