MUSIC: Furthermore: Mar. 14, 1994

He remains America’s best-known — and, in the record stores, best-selling — classical pianist, and yet Van Cliburn hasn’t taken his show on the road in 16 years. Last week, however, Cliburn, 59, announced a tour of up to 20 U.S. cities beginning in Chicago in June.

Poetry is the thing in MTV’s first Spoken Word Tour, which wraps up after 20 cities in Cambridge, Massachusetts, later this month. It features the fiery Reg E. Gaines and two other poets reading their work on a spare stage. What would Beavis say?