Brazilian pianist João Carlos Martins’ life is a tale of success and personal tragedy, of traumatic injuries and triumphant comebacks. It is a story of greatness, of 24 surgeries and resignation, but also a story with a Hollywood ending. In

The piano is heavy, weighing between 480 to 600 lbs (180–270 kg) for an upright one, up to 1,100 (500 kg) for a baby grand, and over 1,200 (540 kg) for a concert grand. How do you put these out

When Carl Reinecke published the first of his well over three hundred works in the 1830s, Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Liszt were at the height of their fame. Such was Reinecke’s longevity that when his final scores were printed, Schoenberg, Webern,

Just how musically talented was Carl Maria von Weber? Well, at the age of 17, he was offered and accepted the post of Director at the Breslau Opera in 1804. Weber had spent some time in Vienna, studying hard with

In 2013, pianist Boris Giltburg won the First and the Audience Prize at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels. Lauded as a deeply sensitive, insightful, and compelling musician, it instantly propelled him to international recognition and fame. Revealing a huge

Pianist André Watts is known as one of the first Black superstars of classical music. He gained national fame by performing with Leonard Bernstein at the New York Philharmonic on a televised program called “The Young People’s Concert” at age

I have recently been fascinated by the art music of Estonia, partially fuelled by the success of Arvo Pärt. But as I have explored in earlier blogs, this triumph of Estonian culture would not have been possible without the groundwork

In building up to writing her Requiem, Elisabetta Brusa (b. 1954) wrote a Marche Funèbre for piano (1984), Adagio for string orchestra (1996), Requiescat for voices and large orchestra (1994–1995), Simply Largo for string orchestra (2008), and a Stabat Mater