“Robert Caro has been knee-deep in the day-by-day minutia of the 1960s for years, ever since Lyndon B. Johnson crossed the decade’s threshold in the fourth installment of Mr. Caro’s mammoth, multivolume biography,” writes Jennifer Schuessler in Friday’s (1/12) New York Times. “But now he’s taken some time out for a somewhat unexpected role: inspiration for a 10-week, citywide cultural festival organized by Carnegie Hall. ‘The ’60s: The Years That Changed America’ officially kicks off on Sunday, with WNYC’s annual free event at the Apollo Theater honoring Martin Luther King’s Birthday. The festival will feature nine musical performances at Carnegie Hall (including, on Jan. 19, the world premieres of two specially commissioned works, inspired by Dr. King’s ‘I Have a Dream Speech’ and by the writings of Studs Terkel, to be performed by the Kronos Quartet), as well as more than 50 concerts, exhibitions, dance performances, film screenings and other events at 35 institutions across the city…. The festival … gestures outward toward the era’s broader political and cultural convulsions.” Caro also discusses the relevance of topics including “women’s rights, gay rights, voting rights, Medicare and Medicaid, a more open immigration policy [that] got started or reached a new intensity in the 1960s.”
Posted January 12, 2018
