Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Fantasia in F minor for Mechanical Organ, K. 608, arr. Fortepiano duet We should never forget that the supposedly rarefied air and sterile environment of classical music is numerously inhabited by an incredible number of colourful personalities.

Carol Ho-Yan Lin is one of Hong Kong’s leading mezzo-sopranos. A graduate of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (HKAPA), she furthered her studies with the American mezzo-soprano Delores Ziegler at the New England Conservatory in Boston where she

Invariably, Francis Poulenc is described as a man of constant contradictions. A sense of ambivalence and ambiguity is readily found in his compositions, but it also extends to his sexual behavior and preferences. Poulenc was a devout Catholic and homosexual

There’s one word that many musicians fear, a word that strikes terror (or boredom) into their hearts. Of course, I can only be talking about practice. Why do we hate it so much? It’s a necessary part of every musician’s

The New Haven Conservative In the United States, Charles Ives is revered as a cultural messiah who provided musical identity to a country desperately searching for a classical musical tradition of its own. Ives went to school at Yale University,

The Nightingale from Czech With her father a mathematician and her mother a biologist, it would have been natural for Magdalena Kožená to become a scientist. Nevertheless, she chose to be a musician; piano was her first love, but she

Rachmaninov – All-Night Vigil, Op.37: VI: Bogoroditse Dyevo The Choir of Clare College, Cambridge Graham Ross, conductor From Veni Emmanuel – Music for Advent (2013) Released by Harmonia Mundi Rachmaninov: All-Night Vigil, Op.37: VI: Bogoroditse DyevoThe familiar hymn Veni Emmanuel

In 1881, Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) wrote to his friend Elisabeth von Herzogenberg that he had finished “a tiny little piano concerto with a wisp of a scherzo.” At that time, Elisabeth could scarcely have known that Brahms had just completed