By Richard Knox Happy Birthday, America! Two hundred and fifty years is an impressive landmark, although the U.S. of A. is still a youngster among nations. Compare our 1776 Declaration with the 1215 Magna Carta, which limited the powers of the English king (ahem!). Or the Roman Empire, which lasted 503 years. Not to mention India, Egypt or China, whose history is dated in the thousands of years. Nevertheless, even if America is still in her unruly adolescence, this is a birthday well...

By Richard Knox We live in a secular society -- who can deny it? We’re marked by our relentless focus on materialism and preoccupation with what established religions call “worldly” concerns. Recent statistics bear this out. In the early-1950s nearly half of all Americans went to church regularly. Today fewer than a third do. And yet, lately the nation has been seeing a rise in the proportion of Americans who identify as “spiritual but not religious.” About seven in ten people Americans...

By Richard Knox The concert begins in the personal voice of a Romantic poem set as a German Lied, or art-song. Such choral Lieder make...