Today we’re going to talk about symphonies. What exactly is a symphony? Is it different from a sinfonia? And, depending on your answer to that question, which composer has written the most symphonies of all time? And how many symphonies

On the 3rd Sunday in July, something truly delicious is coming your way. You guessed it, it’s National Ice Cream Day. It’s the one day of the year when everybody screams for ice cream to sweeten a swelteringly unbearable summer

How would you like to be part of a fabulous ride through the glittering world of Der Rosenkavalier? It’s Richard Strauss’ opulent opera that’s basically a Viennese pasty of romance, wit, and plenty of wigs! This 1911 masterpiece, with a

Franz Liszt, arguably the greatest pianist who ever lived, wasn’t keen on giving formal music lessons. He preferred to work with pianists one-on-one in mentor relationships instead. One of the rare exceptions was Polish pianist Karl Tausig, an outrageously talented

Toward the end of her life, Eugenie Schumann published a book called The Schumanns and Johannes Brahms: The Memoirs of Eugenie Schumann. Eugenie Schumann was a music teacher, pianist, and writer, but she was always best known for being the

These compositions show that new music is not a monolith, containing as many varied approaches as there are composers, even if common threads tend to emerge. The term “new music” is itself hard to define, broadly referring to compositions in

We tend to think of the great composers as gods who created their masterpieces in some kind of temple of art. But in reality, there was no temple, and none of the great composers lived in a vacuum. All were

Shhhhh…. Can you hear that? It’s the sound of World Listening Day, celebrated on 18 July. This special day is hosted by the World Listening Project, a nonprofit organisation that is “devoted to understanding the world and its natural environment,