While clearing out my piano room ahead of a house move last year, I came upon a box of old concert programmes, some dating back twenty-odd years. Some were dog-eared and scuffed, or covered in scribbled notes from when I

Once a musician feels ready he or she might attempt to land a position in one of the major orchestras—Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, London Symphony, Bavarian Radio Symphony, Dresden Staatskapelle, Liepzig Gewandhaus, Leningrad Philharmonic, Czech Philharmonic;

A recent article in the Chicago Tribune titled, Please Don’t Tell me CSO Musicians Have It Easy, by Howard Reich, begins, “Ahh, what a soft and easy life the striking Chicago Symphony Orchestra musicians lead! They show up for a

Minimalism as a musical genre originated in the USA in the 1960s. It involves stripping music down to its bare essentials, to focus on pure sonic power, pulse and the internal processes of the music, without narrative or a defined

What alchemy produces the unique sounds of a symphony orchestra? When approximately 100 musicians play together the resultant fusion reverberates into our souls.

One of my favorite pieces to perform is Hungarian composer Béla Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances. It is full of infectious rhythms, melancholy melodies, and subtle effects. János Starker performs it in the cello rendition.

The piano has undergone all sorts of innovations and embellishments since its invention by Bartolomeo Cristofori in the early 1700s. The most significant advances in the piano’s design were in response to demands from pianists and composers for a sturdier

Dedicated to Clara Schumann, Brahms’ Klavierstücke Op.118 were written in 1893 again at Bad Ischl during his summer sojourn and are probably his most well-known opus nowadays. Julius August Philipp Spitta, a German musicologist, wrote to Brahms after receiving the