August, 2017

46 Posts
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Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767): From Hero to Zero
It really is too bad that Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) did not have a large social network following! Throughout his long and industrious career, he wrote well over 3000 works. It’s no surprise that 18th-century critics unanimously considered him among
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A Cultural Disneyland for Hong Kong!
After nearly 20 years of dilly-dallying, Hong Kong finally got rid of a construction project it never understood nor wanted! I am talking, as you might have guessed, about a dedicated 21st century concert hall at the West Kowloon Cultural
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Muses and Musings
Pauline Viardot and Frédéric Chopin
Located in the southern part of the historical province of Berry, south of the Loire Valley and west of Burgundy lies a region of gentle hills. And the village of Nohant, in the département of the Indre housed the family
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Happy 90th birthday Lollo!
The actor Humphrey Bogart described her as “the girl that makes Marilyn Monroe look like Shirley Temple,” and the photographer Philippe Halsman unabashedly claimed “she had the finest figure among all the actresses I have known.” Dubbed “the most beautiful
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The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Lured out of retirement by a Chinese genius
Olivier Messiaen and Chen Qigang
Olivier Messiaen was long retired when he was introduced to a young Chinese composition student. Chen Qigang was born in Shanghai and raised by a family of artists. He began his musical studies at a very early age and was
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Musicians and Artists: Cy Twombly
American painter Cy Twombly (1929-2011), a modernist with a strong calligraphic sense, moved from abstract art to ‘romantic symbolism.’ The titles of the works are the key to their interpretation – visually, you may be seeing shapes, forms, and words
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The Perils of Perfectionism
“Practise makes perfect” – that oft-quoted phrase beloved of instrumental teachers the world over… It’s a neat little mantra, but one that can have serious and potentially long-lasting negative effects if taken too literally.
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Behind the Curtain
The Great Piano Scam
She was described in the most glorious terms as “the greatest living pianist that almost no one has ever heard of.” Joyce Hatto came to prominence a couple of years before her death, with her real talent only discovered when
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