Winning the prestigious International Chopin Piano Competition in 2005 immediately thrust Rafał Blechacz into the international limelight. He had became the first Polish musician to win the competition in 30 years, and in addition to winning first prize, he was

Anne-Sophie Mutter was born on 29 June 1963 in the German town of Rheinfelden, Baden-Württemberg. Her parents Karl Wilhelm Mutter and Gerlinde Mutter did not play musical instruments, but they were passionate about classical music. Anne-Sophie took up the piano

In the eyes of many critics, the career of Romanian conductor, composer and music theorist Sergiu Celibidache was deeply controversial and beset by contradictions. “While advocating the gentle themes of Zen, he could treat individuals with brutal contempt.” In fact,

Climate change has been triggering a growing number of natural disasters worldwide. The tragedies, such as tornadoes, floods, and fire, cause death and unimaginable damage to peoples’ homes, their lives, and threaten the existence of wildlife around the globe. Music,

The Ukrainian-born composer Thomas de Hartmann (1885-1956) studied at the Imperial Conservatory of Music with the three greatest Russian composers of the late 19th-century: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Anton Arensky, and Sergei Taneyev after entering the conservatory at age 11. The first

Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas in Different Instrumentations At the tragic conclusion to English composer Henry Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas, Aeneas has been given a message supposedly sent by the god Jove to leave Dido and Carthage and to

After listening to Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, the American physician and poet Lewis Thomas wrote an essay that addresses the anxieties produced by the development of nuclear weapons. “I cannot listen to Mahler’s Ninth with anything like the old melancholy mixed

Sometimes composer break out of their box – make a new sound – make you hear music a new way – and sometimes it’s the performers who help as well. Take a listen to these performances and these interesting works