Musical instruments in China were traditionally classified into 8 groups delineated by the material used in the instrument: Silk, Bamboo, Wood, Stone, Metal, Clay, Gourd and Hide. We will look at selected instruments in six of these groups in this

For the average citizen of the Soviet Union, anything with the exception of plain breads, cabbage, potatoes and vodka was a luxury item. Soviet leadership, however, did produce a number of cultish consumer items of frequently questionable quality. A reflector

Film music has always tread that fine line between classical and not-classical. Should it be considered ‘light’ classical or not classical at all? But film music itself is an interesting genre. There are so many films for which the music

Does jazz music make you want to tap your feet and dance? For many, those catchy swing beats can somehow drive our troubles away. In fact, that is one of the reasons why jazz became so popular in the early

Two cellists, coming from neighboring Balkan countries, studying in England but at different conservatories, are starting to make us look at cellists and the highly versatile instruments they play in a very new way. No longer just the lower support

Well-known for his nine symphonies, Antonin Dvořák was one of the first composers to infuse his music with the folk idioms of his native land, enchanting us with Czech, Moravian and other Slavic melodies. He wrote an enormous number of

How did a young woman who played the piano and violin become a “king/queen maker” of such distinguished artists as pianists Murray Perahia, Emanuel Ax, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and Richard Goode, the Tokyo, St. Lawrence, and Borromeo Quartets, violinists Pinchas Zukerman,

I’m often asked to turn the pages for pianists at my local music society, but I tend to decline because the responsibility of page-turning is one which should not be taken lightly. An ability to read music well does not