Professional choir Sonoro celebrates its 10th anniversary with the world premiere of Five Beacons of Light: A Cantata for the Sea – a sweeping new 50-minute choral work specially commissioned by award-winning British composer Cheryl Frances-Hoad, with a libretto by

During the nineteenth century, syphilis was rampant in Europe, and quite a few composers are believed to have had it. The 2024 article “The Syphilis Pandemic Prior to Penicillin: Origin, Health Issues, Cultural Representation and Ethical Challenges” estimates that during

[ze-neh-zen] Zene [noun, Hungarian] music Zen 1. [noun] A state of meditative calm, in which one uses direct, intuitive insights as a way of thinking and acting 2. [adjective/colloquial] Wise, enlightened, relaxed, capable Zenezen is an emerging initiative and digital

Did you know that Ludwig van Beethoven composed 722 works, but only 138 of them carry opus numbers? Opus numbers are actually work numbers assigned by Beethoven’s publishers during his lifetime. The basic question is, why on earth did Beethoven

Over the course of his life, Claude Debussy (1862-1918) contemplated over 50 theatrical projects, yet in the end, he only completed two: Pelléas et Mélisande occupied him between 1893 and 1902, and the ballet Jeux, for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, dates

Frédéric Chopin’s brief engagement to Maria Wodzińska, a young Polish countess and gifted artist, is one of the most overlooked moments of his love life. Born in 1819 to an aristocratic family, Maria first met Chopin when she was just

History remembers Rose and Ottilie Sutro not only as America’s first internationally recognised piano duo, but also as two schemers who stole the score of one of the most beloved violin concertos ever. Born in Baltimore in the 1870s into

In a piano sonata for four hands dedicated to her father, American composer Judith Lang Zaimont (b. 1945) created a dance world of the US from over a century of music. In her youth, she studied with Rosina Lhevinne at