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Kenneth Woods tells a moving story about a violinist who’s not going to make it to the concert because she’s expected to die of cancer before then, but she struggles to come to the rehearsal. Suddenly, drilling this program to the highest possible level didn’t seem like such an important goal. What could I… what […]

It’s summertime, so that means literature hunting, right?   I’m taking a YouTube journey through the Monteverdi madrigals and posting whatever looks interesting.   At present, I’m exploring Monteverdi’s Book IV madrigals and here are the results so far:   1.  Ah, dolente partita!  An incredible video, featured here in Monday’s blog posting. 2.  Cor […]

 I decided I needed to learn more about Monteverdi’s madrigals, so I got a cheap Dover score (Books IV and V) and headed to YouTube.   I think YouTube is the future Choral Literature class (and I’m sure other’s have beat me to that realization).   A very creative rendering of Monteverdi’s “Ah dolente partita!” […]

JOHANNESBURG—Members of the South Africa Vuvuzela Philharmonic Orchestra, widely considered to be among the best large-scale monotonic wind instrument ensembles in the world, told reporters Friday they were furious over the recent outbreaks of international soccer matches during their traditional outdoor concerts.   From The Onion (warning: satire) Look for the reference to Arvo Pärt.

I was born in the same year as Apple’s Steve Jobs and Microsoft’s Bill Gates. And with that, the resemblance ends. As a member of their demographic, however, I can’t help but be fascinated by their work. I would have been content only to be an observer and consumer of many things Apple and Microsoft […]

Alex Ross, music critic for New Yorker magazine and author of the excellent book The Rest is Noise which I reviewed recently, gave a fascinating lecture to the Royal Philharmonic Society in March on the subject of applause, which can now be read online (PDF).   He reminds us that audiences in Mozart's time applauded not […]

Jeffrey Tucker points us to a new book on the history of music in the church in the middle ages: This book is an absolute inspiration. I feel profound gratitude to the author. It is readable and not merely an academic work. The prose is elegant and warm. The "apparatus" in the back is just […]

Chris Rowbury has been reading Ben Zander’s book (one that I also heartily recommend!).   Chris was inspired to blog about one of the lessons from the book – not worrying about what you cannot control.   From Chris: This incident reminded me of the many times in rehearsal when people are late or don’t […]

If you follow this blog or pay attention to any of the other classical blogs, then you may remember the controversy surrounding Leonard Slatkin a couple of months ago.   I pointed to the controversy in this blog post from April 21.    Slatkin has responded to the controversy and points to one of the […]

 Happy Independence Day!