French violinist Ginette Neveu was widely considered to be one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century: a prodigy who graduated from the Paris Conservatoire as a child, beat David Oistrakh in an international competition at 15, and spent

Switzerland’s most prominent composer, Ernest Bloch, was born July 24, 1880, in Geneva. He emigrated to the United States and assumed the directorship of the Cleveland Institute of Music, later of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and of the

Described by critics as an “…immensely gifted pianist… with prodigious technique, myriad shadings, and scrupulous accuracy,” Vitaly Pisarenko came to international attention for winning First Prize at the 8th International Franz Liszt Piano Competition in Utrecht, and Third Prize at

The narrator of Florence Price‘s achingly tender song “Brown Arms (To Mother)” seems to reach for something just out of reach. It is one of the most quietly devastating songs in the American art song repertoire – and once you

Born on 23 July 1944 in Lisbon, Portugal, Maria João Pires is one of the most introspective artists of our time. Her playing is a study in poetic refinement that reveals an almost spiritual connection to the music. Her recordings

Azerbaijani composer Kara Karayev (also Gara Garayev) (1918–1982) began his musical education in his home city of Baku and, at age 20, was accepted into the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied composition. He returned to Baku after graduation and began

Italian composer Maurizio Guernieri (b. 1962) wanted to explore the world of wind instruments, which he felt, as a string musician, was an unfamiliar corner of the musical world. His 2019 work Musicografie (Images in Music) starts each movement with

Composer Gustav Mahler is famous for his monumental symphonies that reshaped late-Romantic music. Yet he wrote his final symphonies in the shadow of a devastating tragedy: the 1907 death of his daughter Maria Anna Mahler, nicknamed Putzi. The loss shattered