The chaconne or ciacona in Italian, is a dance with a double life. When it first appeared in Spain in the late 16th century as a transplant from the New World, it was a quick-tempo dance song, where the texts

On occasion, failure to win a major international competition can be beneficial for an artist’s career. Such was the case with the British pianist Freddy Kempf, born in Croydon to a German father and a Japanese mother on 14 October

Recording Film and TV Music Behind-the-Scene Cast your mind back to the last movie or TV show you watched. Chances are there was music of some kind, enhancing the mood, providing suspense at cliffhangers, setting the scene or underscoring a

The biblical narrative of the New Testament has been called the “greatest story ever told.” And while the story of Jesus Christ is deceptively easy to understand, it is also the most difficult to interpret. One such interpretation premiered on

On 22 September 1830, Frédéric Chopin invited all of musical Warsaw to his home for a dress rehearsal of his E-minor Concerto. The rehearsal was enormously successful and a press review announced, “I hasten to bring a piece of good

Operas, Concertos, Oratorios, Cantatas & More I know this is absolutely subjective, but for me personally, the Baroque music period produced some of the most intense, dramatic, devotional, appealing, and simply most beautiful music imaginable. In school, we are all

Evgeny Kissin, born on 10 October 1971, was undoubtedly one of the most astonishing child prodigies in the second half of the 20th century. But even more remarkable is the fact that Kissin has matured into one of the most

Doctors in the 20th century continue their more complex and complicated paths. Tennessee Williams’ play Summer and Smoke, about a repressed minister’s daughter and the doctor who lives next door. She cannot accept his advances until, too late, when he’s