Blogs

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Ten of the Oldest Classical Music Recordings of All Time, From 1888 On
Today, we’re going back in time to hear ten of the earliest and oldest classical music recordings of all time. Long before streaming services, records, or radio, engineers were experimenting with ways to preserve sound on fragile wax cylinders. The
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Can You Hear Me?
Thomas Hewitt Jones’ anthem of kindness and connection still resonates six years after lockdown. Originally composed during the UK Covid lockdown in 2020, Can You Hear Me? by award-winning British composer Thomas Hewitt Jones still has the power to resonate
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Four Love-Hate Relationships Between Composers and Critics
Throughout music history, music critics have often elevated (or eviscerated) a composer’s reputation. Sometimes critics and composers have found themselves in public feuds. Other times, the composer and critic in question became unlikely friends. Today, we’re looking at four of
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Celebrating 100 Years of the Royal School of Church Music
Join the celebrations with Songs of the Spirit
As the Royal School of Church Music (RSCM) prepares to celebrate its centenary in 2027, a major new musical milestone is on the horizon – a significant new choral commission, Songs of the Spirit, written by the award-winning and newly-awarded
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How Klaus Mäkelä’s Teacher Jorma Panula Created a Conducting Dynasty
Few teachers have had as profound an influence on modern conducting as Finnish conductor and pedagogue Jorma Panula. Born in 1930 in Kauhajoki, Finland, Panula studied music and conducting at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. He served as the music
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Gregor Joseph Werner: The Composer Colleague Who Hated Haydn
Joseph Haydn earned his nickname “Father of the Symphony” while working as the Kapellmeister in the Esterházy household, where he worked for decades, overseeing the court orchestra. However, when Haydn first joined that household at the age of twenty-nine, he
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The Four Teachers Who Shaped Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven is often remembered as a solitary genius: a composer who wrestled with fate, revolutionised music, and struggled through tinnitus, deafness, and depression to create some of the most influential works in the Western canon. But Beethoven didn’t
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Meet the Movers and Shakers
News that Matters in 2025
2025 was a year in which Chinese classical music found itself moving simultaneously outward and inward: expanding its international presence while confronting geopolitical, institutional, and structural realities at home. From orchestras touring abroad and Chinese musicians winning major international competitions,
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