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Technique Without Tears
technique |tekˈnēk| noun a way of carrying out a particular task, esp. the execution or performance of an artistic work or a scientific procedure. • skill or ability in a particular field • a skillful or efficient way of doing
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Who Are You?
Thoughts on Artistic Identity
I bet you could easily name a handful of classical musicians who have distinct identities. From vertiginous heels to extravagant physical gestures, hair tossing or audible muttering or humming, these individuals’ public artistic identities are evident whenever and wherever they
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Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra
Premiered Today in 1944
Béla Bartók (1881-1945) spent the last five years of his life in the United States. Economic hardship, cultural dislocation, and very little artistic acknowledgement and satisfaction plunged the composer into a state of bitter depression. This depression was compounded by
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Satie: Relâche
Scheduled for Performance Today in 1924
Multimedia was alive and well in 1924, and with the title Relâche—loosely translated into “No Performance today,” or “Theatre Closed”—everybody automatically knew that the ballet collaboration between Francis Picabia and Erik Satie was in the firm grip of Dadaism.
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Sooner or Later? The Art of Rubato
Tempo rubato (literally “stolen time” in Italian) is perhaps most closely associated with the music of Fryderyk Chopin, his friend and fellow composer Franz Liszt, and other composers of the Romantic period. But it is possible to achieve rubato effectively
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Conceptual Concerts with MusicArt
Hong Kong-born and now based in London, pianist Annie Yim is the creator of MusicArt London, a conceptual concert series which combines music with poetry and visual arts, creating interesting and unexpected dialogues and connections between the works in the
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Slow Piano
Today we seem to spend far too much of our daily lives trying to do things at high speed or in a hurry, without allowing ourselves time to stand still and think, or to look up occasionally to admire a
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Breathing Space
“Never play faster than you can think” This well-known maxim by pianist, teacher and composer Tobias Matthay has a relevance both in day-to-day practice, and also in performance. When we practice, in our eagerness to move on to a new
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