February, 2018

44 Posts
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Identity in the Details: An Interview with Dana Al Fardan
One of the most widely heard composers from the Middle East is Dana Al Fardan. Every month, over 2 million people hear her music because, as Official Qatar Airways Composer, her music is played during the boarding and disembarking process
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Paul Wittgenstein
All in One Hand
When Ludwig Wittgenstein got word of his brother’s ordeal, he wrote in his diary “frightfully sad business. I keep having to think of poor Paul, who has so suddenly lost his career! How terrible. What philosophy is needed to get
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L’Elisir d’amore at Vancouver Opera
Vancouver Opera is the distinguished and well-liked company founded in 1958 by a group of visionary community leaders. They believed in the value of the performing arts in the life of a great city in Canada. Each year, it has
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Bears and Hens
Many of Franz Joseph Haydn’s symphonies have nicknames, sometimes for the circumstances, such as “The Miracle” in Symphony No. 96, where the audience, in moving forward to greet the great man in London wasn’t in their seats when the overhead
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At the Center of the Musical Universe
Frédéric Chopin
Chopin’s unique way of writing for the piano fundamentally changed how performers and composers thought about the instrument. His legacy was treasured in numerous compositions throughout the 19th century, and it remains colorfully vibrant in the concert repertoire of today.
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Why I Feel Compelled to Attend the 2018 Verbier Music Festival II
In Search of Talent – Verbier Festival Academy
Every year, the Verbier Festival Academy invites 50 exceptional music talents from around the world to congregate for 3 weeks in the scenic Swiss Alps, to be mentored by elite artists in preparation for careers as soloists, chamber musicians and
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The Pianist’s Presence
The “concert pianist” is a relatively recent creation. In the middle of the nineteenth century, a time when the technology of piano manufacture allowed piano makers to build bigger, stronger instruments, the “concert pianist” as we understand the role today,
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Forgotten Cellists: Daniil Shafran
Our next featured cellist, Daniil Shafran, was born in 1923 in Petrograd, now Saint Petersburg, and came by his talent honestly. His father was the principal cellist of the Leningrad Philharmonic and his mother Frida Moiseyevna, was a pianist.
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