In 2014, Elim Chan won the Donatella Flick LSO Conducting Competition as the first female conductor to win the competition in its history. “When I won that competition,” she explained, “history wasn’t something that came into my mind straight away…

Inspired by night, the Nocturne first came into our musical language in the 18th century, but the idea of a night-time work comes from the ancient church, where ‘nocturn’ was the last of the seven prayers of the day. Held

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In previous blogs we listened to a number of beautiful piano quintets scored for piano and a string quartet. Robert Schumann came up with this arrangement in 1842, and it became the standardised scoring for much of the 19th century

Michael Daugherty: Fire and Blood In 1933, a set of 27 fresco panels by the Mexican artist Diego Rivera was unveiled at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA). Rivera (1886–1957) brought the idea of murals to life. His enormous works,

Today, we’re continuing our exploration of ten unhappy marriages from classical music history. Last time, we looked at the marriage stories of Leonard Bernstein, Gabriel Fauré, Richard Wagner, Gustav Mahler, and Joseph Haydn. Today, we’re ready to resume our countdown.

A good number of instrumental works, specifically pieces written for piano solo in the 19th and 20th-century, carry the title “Nocturne.” The word comes from the French, meaning “nocturnal” or “night”, and it suggests the magical atmosphere of peace and

The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University in Houston, Texas, has a reputation for excellence in no small part due to their illustrious faculty. To name a few, they include Norman Fischer, the Herbert S. Autrey Professor of Cello