Podcast appearances and mentions of Justin Davidson

We visit with Ward Miller of Preservation Chicago; design critic and New York Magazine writer Justin Davidson; and musical guest Eddie Mugavero of the beloved Nashville swing band Bada Bing Bada Boom.   

For the first three years of Justin Davidson's childhood in Chicago, his mom spoke only Spanish to him. Although he never spoke the language as a young child, when Davidson began to learn Spanish in middle school, it came very quickly to him, and over the years, he became bilingual.Now an associate professor in UC Berkeley's Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Davidson is part of a research team that has discovered where in the brain bilinguals process and store language-specific sounds and sound sequences. The research project is ongoing.This is the final episode of a three-part series with Davidson about language in the U.S. Listen to the first two episodes: "A linguist's quest to legitimize U.S. Spanish" and "A language divided."Photo courtesy of Justin Davidson.Music by Blue Dot Sessions.Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There are countless English varieties in the U.S. There's Boston English and California English and Texas English. There's Black English and Chicano English. There's standard academic, or white, English. They're all the same language, but linguistically, they're different."Standard academic English is most represented by affluent white males from the Midwest, specifically Ohio in the mid-20th century," says UC Berkeley sociolinguist Justin Davidson. "If you grow up in this country and your English is further away from that variety, then you may encounter instances where the way you speak is judged as less OK, less intelligent, less academically sound."And this language bias and divide can have devastating consequences, as it did in the trial of George Zimmerman, who killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in 2012. This is the second episode of a three-part series with Davidson about language in the U.S. Listen to the first episode: "A linguist's quest to legitimize U.S. Spanish."Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts).Music by Blue Dot Sessions.AP photo by Jacob Langston. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Spanish speakers in the United States, among linguists and non-linguists, have been denigrated for the way they speak, says UC Berkeley sociolinguist Justin Davidson. It's part of the country's long history of scrutiny of non-monolingual English speakers, he says, dating back to the early 20th century."It's groups in power, its discourses and collective communities, that sort of socially determine what kinds of words and what kinds of language are acceptable and unacceptable," says Davidson, an associate professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese.But the U.S. is a Spanish-speaking country, he says, and it's time for us as a nation to embrace U.S. Spanish as a legitimate language variety.This is the first episode of a three-part series with Davidson about language in the U.S. In the next episode, we'll discuss language bias — how we all have it, where it comes from and the devastating consequences it can have.Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu).Photo by Brittany Hosea-Small.Music by Blue Dot Sessions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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As you might have heard, Sidewalk Labs became a part of Google at the beginning of 2022. So City of the Future has been on hiatus...BUT I'm still creating podcasts that I think CotF listeners would like. And I'd like to share them with you all! Urban Roots. If you enjoyed City of the Future season 4, which was all about equitable development, then you should definitely check out Urban Roots. We not only tell the histories of women and people of color that you probably don't know, we also draw the throughline from the past to the present, and talk to folks who are doing equitable, preservation-based development that takes those histories into account. Our two-part series on Indianapolis is a great place to start, but we have episodes on Brooklyn, Cincinnati, and Los Angeles, too. Learn more about it by visiting urbanistmedia.org or emailing urbanrootspodcast@gmail.com. Uncertain things. Less for the urbanist than for the person who is seeking to pop their media bubble, my journalist roommate and I created this interview show back in 2020. We purposely seek out academics, writers, journalists, thinkers across the political spectrum — people who actually want to enter into conversation and debate and leave their silos behind. The nice thing about Uncertain things is that I get to talk with whomever I find interesting and insightful, like evolutionary biologist Nicholas Christakis, historian Niall Ferguson, and journalist Caitlin Flanagan. We do sometimes talk to urbanists, too — like Vishaan Chakrabarti, Justin Davidson, and Michael Kimmelman (coming soon). You can subscribe to it at uncertain.substack.com and email us theuncertaintimes@gmail.com. Last two things — I'd love to hear from City of the Future fans! Reach me via vanessaquirk.com. And if you're an urbanism company who would like to hire me for my podcasting/comms expertise, reach out! Again, at vanessaquirk.com I hope you all have a very happy, safe holiday season. Hopefully I'll be seeing you — in the future!

New York Magazine writer Justin Davidson joins to talk about New York City's structural changes ten years after Hurricane Sandy, and how the city might look in the future as a result of future storms.

It's 2022, we've entered our third (and hopefully final) year of the pandemic, potentially with herd immunity in sight, but for many of us, our working lifestyles are still TBD and as up-in-the-air as the unpredictable age we're in. Companies are changing how they operate, because we, as a people, have been forever changed, and there may be no “going back to normal,” but only paving the way for a new normal. In “Working Models,” Melissa Whitman, Brooke Weinstein, and Justin Davidson discuss in-person, hybrid, and remote working––the highs, the lows, and the unexpected––giving insight to how each of their companies have adapted and are operating successfully. Listen in to hear about the challenges and advantages of each style including lessons learned from navigating workload, client relationships, and company culture. Featured Panelists: Melissa Whitman, Marketing Coordinator, Design Resources Group Architects Brooke Weinstein, Senior Associate and Director of Marketing, Dewberry Justin Davidson, Marketing Manager, JE Dunn Construction If you loved this episode and our podcast, please subscribe, and follow SMPS NY on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook. You can also email us your questions, comments, and ideas or if you'd like to be featured in an episode at themarketingdepartmentpodcast@gmail.com. To find out more, check out our SMPS NY Chapter site: https://smpsny.org/ https://anchor.fm/the-marketing-department

This week Aspen sits down with Justin Davidson to explore college stories and get to the bottom of who's the a**hole.

Greetings, Scorekeepers! Welcome back to MN Opera's THE SCORE! As you can see we're on Mondays now, so let's get this week started off right with... some COVID chat? Like every other human on earth we are doing our best to stay upright as we ride this fourth wave, so we spend a little time trying to process our feelings and find a little oasis of sanity. Come breathe with us! Fortunately, however, we do have something to celebrate in the form of another woman of color doing big things in the classical music world. This time, we're congratulating Shanta Thake and her recent ascension to Chief Artistic Officer at Lincoln Center. Amazing! Then we get our Kid Fury and Crissle on for a few minutes, b/c we're afraid someone needs to get read. Apparently, according to a certain "secular conservative," classical music is under racial attack and DEI programs that aim to dismantle white supremacy inside of classical music and opera institutions will be the death of us all! And naturally, to paraphrase the great Michael Jordan, we took that personally. So it's time to go to school! And then we'll send you into the rest of your week as usual with a moment of Pure Black Joy (plus Suni Lee)! Let's do it to it, y'all! Hosts: Lee Bynum, Rocky Jones, Paige Reynolds Producer: Rocky Jones Timestamps The COVID of It All - 0:00:27 Congratulations Shanta Thake! - 0:26:38 The "Racial Attack" on Classical Music - 0:34:03 History Lesson Time: Classical's Role in Colonization & The Anti-Colonial Orchestra Movement - 0:58:34 PB&J - 1:24:20 Links "Lincoln Center Appoints Shanta Thake to Lead Its Revival" by Justin Davidson (https://www.vulture.com/2021/08/shanta-thake-lincoln-center-chief-artistic-officer.html (Vulture)) "Anti-Colonial Orchestras: A Cultural Response to Classical Music Imperialism" by Jon Silpayamanant (https://silpayamanant.wordpress.com/2021/02/19/anti-colonial-orchestras-a-cultural-response-to-classical-music-imperialism/?fbclid=IwAR2ms4EdIuhl2vif1IYJ-PV2DaeFcRw3qE78aBM58GgiigsV9DKa46q0-1o (Wordpress)) Gateways Music Festival (https://www.gatewaysmusicfestival.org/ (Learn More and Buy Tickets)) Gateways Music Festival Orchestra Performs "Lift Every Voice and Sing" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbDGm9Lgbzs (YouTube)) New episodes of THE SCORE drop every other Monday. If you like what you hear, please support us and SUBSCRIBE to the show on your favorite podcast app and be sure to SHARE our show with your friends. Also leaving a 5-star REVIEW on Apple Podcasts is a great way to help get the word out. For more info about the exciting EDI work happening at MN Opera, please visit https://mnopera.org/edi/ (mnopera.org/edi). Email your questions or comments to thescore@mnopera.org

One of Justin Davidson's first gigs as New York Magazine's architecture critic was covering the development of the 9/11 memorial — an incredibly complex and controversial project that shaped the city's future. The experience influenced the way he thinks about the role of architecture and urbanism in the ways we process our societal traumas. We talk to Justin about the role of the architecture critics, the 21st century task of creating memorials to shame, and why it's too soon to truly memorialize Covid. And then, for fun, we put him in the urbanist hot seat for questions ranging from: "how do we fix housing" to "who should we vote for mayor of New York?"Find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podcast Addict, and Stitcher. Follow @UncertainPod on your social media of choice.On the agenda:-Cities, journalisming, and national tragedies-What do critics critique? (And why scale matters!)-9/11 and the premature monument-How will we remember COVID19?-Who do monuments serve?-Why NY sucks (aka Adaam’s favorite diatribe)-Is there anybody out there (among NYC mayoral candidates)?Uncertain Things is hosted and produced by Adaam James Levin-Areddy and Vanessa M. Quirk. For more doomsday ruminations, subscribe to: uncertain.substack.com. Get full access to Uncertain Things at uncertain.substack.com/subscribe

Today’s Daf Yomi page, Eruvin 5 and 6, have the rabbis debating what, precisely, qualifies as a public space. Justin Davidson, New York Magazine's Pulitzer Prize-winning architectural critic, joins us to talk about how politicians, activists, and urban planners grappled over the exact same question, and what the implications of their discussions had been on our lives. How will cities change in the aftermath of a pandemic demanding social distancing? Listen and find out.

The coronavirus pandemic has already left the city in a different state than before. But have we used this time to rethink how we share our streets, our public spaces, and our neighborhoods? Pat Kiernan, Annika Pergament, and Jamie Stelter speak with Justin Davidson, New York Magazine architecture critic and author, about how we should re-envision our five boroughs. IMPORTANT LINKS Learn more about “One New York,” our resources, and ways to show your support: www.ny1.com/onenewyork Get the latest coronavirus news and updates: www.ny1.com/coronavirus Join the conversation, ask questions, or share your photos, videos, and notes using #OneNewYork If you like what your hear, share this podcast with your friends and family — it’s free for all New Yorkers and beyond. Leave us a rating and review where ever you listen.

What's a local sports editor to do when there are no sports? What's a classical music critic to do when there are no performances? What's a food writer to do when restaurants are closed? Three writers and editors join Brian Stelter for a dialogue about how their jobs and coverage priorities have changed due to the coronavirus crisis. Louisville Courier-Journal sports editor Rana Cash talks about how her newsroom is taking an "all hands on deck approach" to cover the crisis. Cash says, "Three of my sports reporters are currently on furlough this week. And so it's more pressure and it's harder to get things done. But this is such a unique story, such an important story that I feel like people are kind of willing to kind of go the extra mile because of the weight of it. And that's from our features reporters... to all of our sports writers." New York Magazine classical music and architecture critic Justin Davidson describes New York City "on pause." The Atlanta Journal-Constitution food and dining editor Ligaya Figueras explains how her section has adjusted dramatically to the sudden shutdown. Figueras says the paper has suspended restaurant reviews and added a new "guide to ordering takeout" feature, for example.

Justin Davidson is the architecture and classical music critic at New York Magazine. He previously studied music at Harvard and Columbia and began his journalism career as a staff writer at Newsday. In this episode, Jarrett and Justin talk about the role of the critic, the similarities between writing about music and architecture, and what happened after he broke the story about The Met’s new logo. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm/146-justin-davidson.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD:  SO! Podcast #73: NYC Highline Soundwalk SUBSCRIBE TO THE SERIES VIA ITUNES ADD OUR PODCASTS TO YOUR STITCHER FAVORITES PLAYLIST In a recent profile, New Yorkmagazine’s Justin Davidson called the NYC High Line, a “tunnel through glass towers,” an urban beautification project that had been designed with local real estate prices in mind, which […]

With the recent public discourse around "boys being boys" and the associated impact on women, I spent some time looking at how our world and communities are designed. What I found (which won't surprise most women) is that most aspects of the world we encounter are not designed with women in mind -- likely because they are often designed without the input of women. This episode dives a bit into how our communities, tech, and other aspects of our lives are designed, and sheds some light on how those designs impact women. It's clear that we could use some re-designing, and that includes some social redesigning to move away from the harmful societal expectation that "boys will be boys."
 Resources in this episode: 
Jennie Hill, 10/22/2017 “Walking, dressing and being on a planet designed for men” 
3/2/2004 Volvo: “Your Concept Car - by women for modern people”
 Kat Ely "The World is Designed for Men" (Medium article)
 Justin Davidson, 3/2018 "What Would A World Designed By Women Look Like?"
 Ankita Rao, 5/15/2017, “Sexism in the City”
 Alexander Starritt, 2016, "Women And Men Use Cities Very Differently"
 Ellie Dori, “Designed with Men in Mind”
 Soraya Chemaly, 3/16/2016 “The problem with a technology revolution designed primarily for men” 
Kate Brodok, 8/4/2017, "Why We Desperately Need Women To Design"
 Larry Hardesty, 2/11/2018 “Study finds gender and skin-type bias in commercial artificial-intelligence systems”
 Stance Grounded (@_SJPeace_) video

Justin Davidson, architecture & classical music critic, New York magazine-author of "Magnetic City: A Walking Companion to New York," summarizes New York-the real estate deal between the Dutch and the Lenape Indians- as everyone's story of who comes here.

There's a creepy transformation taking over our cities, says architecture critic Justin Davidson. From Houston, Texas to Guangzhou, China, shiny towers of concrete and steel covered with glass are cropping up like an invasive species. Rethink your city's anatomy as Davidson explains how the exteriors of building shape the urban experience -- and what we lose when architects stop using the full range of available materials. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Existe una espeluznante transformación que está tomando el control de nuestras ciudades, dice el crítico de la arquitectura Justin Davidson. Desde Houston a Texas y a Guangzhou, en China, las torres brillantes de hormigón y acero cubierto con vidrio surgen como una especie invasora. Hay que repensar la anatomía de cada ciudad, explica Davidson, y observar cómo la fachada de una construcción moldea la experiencia urbana; él también explica lo que perdemos cuando los arquitectos dejan de usar toda la gama de materiales disponibles.

Justin Davidson, critique en architecture, veut nous avertir d'une transformation inquiétante dans nos villes. De Houston à Canton, les gratte-ciels de béton et d'acier recouverts de verre envahissent le paysage. Une remise en question de l'anatomie d'une ville grâce à l'exposé de Davidson sur l'impact de l'extérieur des bâtiments sur la vie urbaine, et ce que l'on a à perdre lorsque les architectes délaissent l'ensemble des matériaux disponibles.

Há uma transformação assustadora tomando conta de nossas cidades, diz o crítico de arquitetura Justin Davidson. De Houston, no Texas, até Cantão, na China, as torres reluzentes de concreto e aço, cobertas de vidro, estão se espalhando como ervas daninhas. Tente repensar a anatomia da sua cidade ao ouvir Davidson explicar como as fachadas dos edifícios modelam a experiência urbana -- e o que perdemos quando os arquitetos deixam de usar toda a gama de materiais disponível.

건축가 저스틴 데이빗슨은 우리 도시들을 흉측하게 변형시키는 것들이 있다고 이야기 합니다. 텍사스의 휴스턴부터 중국 광저우에 이르기까지 콘크리트와 철재로 지어져 유리로 덮힌 건물들이 마치 외래종처럼 퍼져나갑니다. 건물의 외관이 도시 경험에 어떤 영향을 끼치는지와 다양한 건축재를 사용하지 않게 될 때 우리가 잃는 것은 무엇인지에 대한 데이빗슨의 설명을 들으며 우리 도시에 대해 생각해 보세요.

There's a creepy transformation taking over our cities, says architecture critic Justin Davidson. From Houston, Texas to Guangzhou, China, shiny towers of concrete and steel covered with glass are cropping up like an invasive species. Rethink your city's anatomy as Davidson explains how the exteriors of building shape the urban experience -- and what we lose when architects stop using the full range of available materials.

Possibly no orchestra has prompted more hand-wringing and ambivalence than the Vienna Philharmonic. The 172-year-old orchestra is recognized the world over for a very specific sound that’s changed little over the decades, and a playing style that has been passed down from generation to generation. But critics charge that it’s just that exclusive philosophy that may explain why there are few women and virtually no minorities in its ranks. Indeed, 16 years after the Philharmonic became one of the last big European orchestras to admit women, they are still an exotic sight onstage. Despite a blind audition policy, in which candidates are not visible when they play, the orchestra currently has just seven female members out of 130 total (four other women are serving a probationary period, standard for incoming members). At the same time, the Vienna Philharmonic has shown progress by acknowledging its complicity during the Nazi era. After a team of historians looked into its World War II-era activities, the orchestra in December quietly revoked awards it gave to six Nazi leaders. Some observers wonder if this reckoning with the past may signal a broader policy of reform. “I think it’s a question of an institution genuinely trying to evolve and how quickly you can evolve,” said James Oestreich, the retired classical music editor of the New York Times, who has been closely covering the orchestra. “I don’t think anyone is taking the position that there is nothing wrong with [its lack of diversity]. Of course there’s a problem.” But Joshua Kosman, the classical music critic of the San Francisco Chronicle, contends that the orchestra is not working hard enough to address its membership issues, in part because the classical music field mostly gives it a pass. “This has been an ongoing issue for a very long time and one that I’ve been surprised not to see any discussion of or any reckoning of it,” said Kosman. "It would be worth it if at least these matters were openly discussed." In the 1990s, women’s groups, including the National Organization for Women, held protests outside of concert halls when the VPO toured the U.S. and music critics (including Oestreich and Kosman), have periodically challenged the orchestra on its policies. Many orchestras, of course, besides Vienna have struggled with diversity issues of their own. As Oestreich notes, “you will not find a major American orchestra that has more than one, two or maybe three blacks. This has been going on for years and years and I don’t hear a lot of uproar about that.” But Kosman says that is a concern rooted in the supply chain: historically, African-Americans haven't been encouraged to pursue careers in classical music as much as whites. “There’s not an analogous supply problem for minorities in European orchestras," he notes, "particularly for Asian musicians, as you can tell by comparing the roster of the Vienna Phil with any other comparable European orchestra." Joel Bell, chairman of the Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership, believes that change is a priority but it won’t happen overnight. “I find a struggling with the balance of speed of change to achieve what we would like to see as an end result, but without jeopardizing tradition and quality in the process,” he said. Bell believes the VPO should be judged not by the total number of women and minorities in the ensemble but by the percentage of women added since it opened its membership in 1997. On Twitter, New York Magazine critic Justin Davidson observed in December that the VPO is “dodging the present by correcting the past” – comparing the Nazi-era revelations with the alleged lack of interest in diversification. Kosman hopes that the Philharmonic will take a harder look at itself. “I’m greatly hopeful that one self-examination is connected with many," he said. "One can only hope." Listen to the full segment above, subscribe to our podcast on iTunes and please take our poll or share your thoughts below. .chart_div { width: 600px; height: 300px; } loadSurvey( "hows-vienna-philharmonic-doing", "survey_hows-vienna-philharmonic-doing");

The year 2013 saw plenty of headline-making moments in classical music. Protesters came to the opening night of the Met, while a stagehands strike cancelled the opening night at Carnegie Hall. There were heated debates over women conductors and some complicated celebrations for Richard Wagner. It was another tough year for some orchestras but a good one for Benjamin Britten fans. In this edition of Conducting Business, three experts talk about the past year: Anne Midgette, classical music critic of the Washington Post; Justin Davidson, classical music and architecture critic for New York magazine; and Heidi Waleson, a classical music critic for the Wall Street Journal. High Points: Anne: In the year that Van Cliburn died, Anne was particularly excited to hear the 22-year-old Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov: “Trifonov is a pianist whom I find totally exciting. I hear a lot of great concerts in the course of a year but I find that Trifonov has something really special and is a really interesting artist and somebody I look forward to hearing again and again.” Justin on Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra's staging of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro at the Mostly Mozart Festival: “One of things I really liked about it was it was one of these really portable productions. It was done in a concert hall with the orchestra on stage, no sets, minimal props, costumes that were taken off a clothes rack that was sitting on the stage…With minimal resources they produced one of the most effervescent and inventive productions I’ve seen of that opera. What it said to me is how much you can do with how little.” [Read more of Justin's picks at NYMag.com] Heidi: George Benjamin’s Written on Skin, given its U.S. premiere at Tanglewood in August: “So often you see these new operas and you think, ‘Why did they bother? Why did you turn this movie or this book into an opera?' This was a completely new piece of writing and it had a tension to it from beginning to end. It has a fantastically colorful and intricate orchestration, which includes a solo moment for the viola da gamba." Listen to Written on Skin on Q2 Music   Low Point: The closing of New York City Opera in October after a last-ditch campaign to raise funds for its 2014 season fell through. Anne: “It is not a sign that New York can’t support two opera companies. It is a sign that, due to poor decisions on behalf of the board and a whole sequence of events, this particular thing happened that really didn’t need to happen.” Justin: "One thing that you can take away from that is it is really the product of a classical music and operatic infrastructure that, over the years, got overextended. While we have learned how to expand, trying to do planned shrinkage and figure out how to contract” is tougher for the classical music business. "If you have union contracts and have a season that establishes a kind of baseline, it’s very, very difficult to say ‘we need this to be smaller.’” Heidi: “It was unable to come up with a convincing audience strategy, opera house strategy or even artistic strategy. They did try a few things that I thought were quite interesting – doing for example A Quiet Place, a Leonard Bernstein opera that had never been done in New York… They were in fact trying to reestablish themselves as something that was alternative to the Met, that was a little more forward-looking, and I think it’s really a shame that they couldn’t.” Trends: Anne: The spotlight in 2013 turned to women – women conductors, women composers. “Classical music has proven to have a particularly thick glass ceiling. People are looking at the situation and saying, ‘It’s been years people, why do we still not have very many female conductors on the podium? And when we do, why is it such a big deal?’ There’s still that funny ambivalence about how far we should look at this as a phenomenon and how far we should pretend we’ve all been equal all along.” Justin: The lack of women on major podiums is “a sign of the difficulty that the whole establishment has in adapting at all. What happens is these institutions are very rigid and brittle and when they come up against an obstacle they know that they’re going to splinter and so they avoid the obstacles. It’s a very inflexible set of relationships… Heidi: “The New York Philharmonic seems to be about 50 percent women these days – so why not on the podium?” Justin on the arrival of alternative opera and non-traditional performance venues, as seen in events like the Prototype Festival: “With the cost of real estate in New York, companies are finding cheaper venues and the technology has matured enough so all that you really need is a pretty small room and a fairly minimal investment in machinery to be able to put on a pretty sophisticated multimedia event." Heidi: “There are other organizations doing similar kinds of things: The Gotham Chamber Opera put on a Cavalli opera [Eliogabalo] in a burlesque club... It attracts a different kind of audience. You can break through some of the formality of going to the opera house and sitting in the velvet seat and watching the gold curtain go up."   Surprises: Justin: Caroline Shaw, a 30-year-old New York composer, violinist and singer (right), became the youngest ever winner of the Pulitzer Prize in music for her Partita for 8 Voices (heard at the start of this segment). “It has a quality that almost no contemporary music has, which is joy. It’s something that we’ve forgotten is part of the classical music tradition and an important one.”  Anne: “It’s interesting in that [Shaw] doesn’t even self-identify as a composer but as a violinist. The Pulitzer has been very eager to expand its reach and get outside of the norm of what had been deemed Pulitzer-worthy over the years and I think this is a sign that this is happening.” Heidi on Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron’s musical of “Fun Home” at the Public Theater: "I see a lot of new operas, and so many of them are overblown, trying so hard that they feel stillborn. 'Fun Home,' based on Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir, tells the story of a critical juncture in Alison’s life: she came out as a lesbian in college, and several months later, her father, whom she had just found out was a closeted gay man, killed himself by walking in front of a truck. The piece uses music in the way that you wish these new operas would – to deeply explore feelings in a raw, immediate way." (Note: this "bonus pick" did not make it into the podcast.)   Listen to the full discussion above and tell us: what were your high and low points in classical music in 2013? Photo credits: Shutterstock; Caroline Shaw by Piotr Redliński, 2013

When the news emerged last week that Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center is to finally go under the knife in 2017, reaction was swift and vocal. "Tear the place down!" wrote more than one commenter on a recent WQXR.org blog post. "The dimensions are all wrong," said another. Some familiar complaints about hall were heard — concerning its acoustics, uncomfortable seats, dated restrooms and even the lack of a pipe organ. Others argued that a facelift should respect the integrity of the 1962 building while using the latest technology or acoustic principals. A concert hall renovation is an exceedingly long, complex and costly project involving numerous constituents — patrons, musicians, staff, boards — and Avery Fisher is home not only to the New York Philharmonic but many other presenters. So just what does Avery Fisher Hall need? How can it become more welcoming to new audiences? And what risks confront Lincoln Center and the New York Philharmonic as they embark on the process? (Over 80 percent of concert hall renovations experience significant cost overruns.) In this podcast, guest host Jeff Spurgeon puts these and other questions to three experts: Justin Davidson, classical music & architecture critic at New York magazine Carroll Joynes, a senior research fellow at the Cultural Policy Center of the University of Chicago Pete Matthews, editor, of the blog Feast of Music Please share your own thoughts on Avery Fisher Hall's planned renovation below.