Saddle up, folks, because every September 17, the world tips its cowboy hat to International Country Music Day! It’s a day to crank up the twang, strum a guitar, and celebrate the heart and soul of country music. Now, some

Elfrida Andrée is one of the most remarkable women composers of the nineteenth century. She campaigned to become the first professional woman organist in Sweden, paving the way for countless women after her. But she didn’t stop there: she also

Born in December 1851, Eugenie Schumann was the seventh of Robert and Clara Schumann’s eight children. In 1920, she wrote a memoir about her life and family. It offers priceless insight into the genius of her mother and their entire

Evgeny Kissin has been a piano superstar ever since he burst onto the scene as a curly-haired child prodigy in the early 1980s. Starting in the early days of YouTube in the mid-2000s, fans began uploading videos of his performances

Wilhelmine Clauss, later Wilhelmine Clauss-Szarvady, is one of the most successful pianists you’ve never heard of. Although almost entirely forgotten today, she would become one of the greatest pianists of the Romantic Era, beloved by Berlioz, Liszt, the Schumanns, and

What do you do off stage that provides inspiration on stage? This is one of the questions in my Meet the Artist interview, and it often elicits some interesting, and occasionally surprising responses. It also offers insights into “what musicians

Nowadays, we remember Robert Schumann as a composer. However, during his lifetime, he was also widely known as a music critic and founder of the periodical Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (New Journal for Music). Today, we’re looking at Schumann’s work

Dmitri Shostakovich is famous for his devastating music and decades-long struggle to assert his artistic autonomy in the face of a totalitarian government. The important roles that his wife and two children played in his life and career are less