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It’s not uncommon for musicians to perform as public service—in schools, hospitals, and nursing homes. But students in the Bard Conservatory Orchestra recently found themselves onstage in an unusual venue: a maximum security prison. Lara Pellegrinelli reports on their concert, the first ever to feature a full orchestra at the ...

Barack Obama found early support for his presidential bid in Harlem, but not everyone there will be celebrating the inauguration. Proud as they are of the first African American president, some think it’s time to focus on more important things—like the morning after. Lara Pellegrinelli brings us this report.

For many Americans, Indian classical music is synonymous with Ravi Shankar the sitar virtuoso who inspired the Beatles decades ago.

But here in New York, Indian classical music is alive and well.

Earlier this week, around two-dozen students of South Indian classical music performed for family and friends at a festival in ...

For many music lovers, Indian classical music is synonymous with Ravi Shankar, the sitar virtuoso who inspired the Beatles decades ago. But here in New York, Indian classical music is alive and well. Every year, around two-dozen students of South Indian classical music performed for family and friends at a ...

The first woman to swim the English Channel was a 21-year-old New Yorker named Gertrude Ederle. Three years ago, one of her old training routes was revived -- a swim from Battery Park, at the tip of Manhattan, to Sandy Hook, New Jersey. It's a 17.5 mile swim that comes ...

It's an opera about the atomic bomb and a single, tension-filled day that led up to the first nuclear test. Doctor Atomic opens tonight at The Metropolitan Opera. Created by Pulitzer-prize winning composer John Adams and librettist Peter Sellars, Dr. Atomic is the story of Robert Oppenheimer, the lead scientist ...

The electromagnetic instrument the theremin has been making appearances New York's jazz clubs, world music cafes even the Museum of Modern Art. That's because of a new champion of the unusual instrument -- a young player named Pamelia Kurstin.

Pamelia Kurstin's MySpace page

The Lincoln Center Festival is presenting Die Soldaten: a post-war German opera that looks at the human capacity for cruelty. If the material doesn't move you, the production will: audiences are seated on a steel platform that travels a thousand feet up and down the opera’s stage. Lara Pellegrinelli went ...

Last night, approximately two thousand people filled the Manhattan Center for the Dhallywood Music & Film Awards. Dhallywood takes its name from the capital of Bangladeshi – Dhaka – and the burgeoning film industry there. Lara Pellegrinelli reports on the popular awards show, from the enthusiastic locals in attendance to ...

This Friday, a new production of Philip Glass’s Satyagraha will debut at the Metropolitan Opera. It tells the story of Mahatma Gandhi’s experiences in South Africa, ones that helped define his philosophy of non-violent resistance. Gandhi isn’t the only figure who casts a large shadow on stage or, for that ...

Since forming in 1981, the Russian rock group DDT has survived the Soviet regime, hard times in the '90s, and the demise of independent media. Now, one of Russia's most popular rock acts is visiting New York on a five-city tour of the U.S. Writer Lara Pellegrinelli shares the band's ...