Denis Bédard (b. 1950) is a Canadian organist, pedagogue, and composer celebrated for his prolific output of organ and choral music. Born in Québec, Bédard was educated at the Conservatoire de musique de Québec, where he graduated with premier prix

Imagine being a piano prodigy who became the toast of Paris during the Roaring Twenties. Imagine surviving the Nazi occupation of France. Imagine making your Carnegie Hall debut in your eighties. This is the life that forgotten pianist Youra Guller

When the Skallsjö Sommarorkester was founded in 2013, all the members were between 15 and 18 years old. They loved classical music and believed that classical music had been given an undeservedly bad reputation for being boring and was dying.

World Smile Day is the one day of the year when your face gets to flex its happiest muscles and flash those pearly whites like you’re auditioning for a toothpaste commercial. A smile, after all, is contagious and a good

We often forget how great composers were also great improvisers. In fact, when the rules of Western classical music started being defined better, there was not much difference in the creative approach the musicians would have. They were both composers

Imagine for a moment that you are experiencing every instrumentalist’s worst nightmare. You have poured hundreds of hours of meticulous practice and study into knowing the score for a piece of music inside out, and into questions of interpretation, technique,

Ludwig van Beethoven was, famously, a freelance musician. He didn’t work as a Kapellmeister in a court or an organist in a church. Then, as now, it wasn’t easy to cobble together a living as a working freelance musician. Over

The 19th century and the increasing wealth in the middle class brought refinements to the front parlour of the home, most notably, the large black monster known as the piano. Children were pressed into years of piano study so that