French composer Erik Satie was a curious, eccentric man. He had a penchant for grey corduroy suits (he had seven identical ones) and umbrellas, and apparently only ate white food. His response to a critic who said his music lacked

Playing a musical instrument is an amazing endeavor. It’s thrilling when a performance is everything we want it to be and the audience erupts in applause. If we’ve conveyed the beauty, meaning, and emotion of the music, and not the

Music fulfils a variety of functions today. It is used to communicate with and entertain audiences across the world. It is used as a means of social interaction, an instrument of instruction, artists use it to build inspiration for other

The international news is full of reports of the battle of Hong Kong – students battling the government, destroying facilities, battling police, taking control of the streets – and yet, at the same time there’s another side. The streets may

The French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte was a brilliant military strategist, but the ability to hold a tune eluded him completely. Betsy Balcombe, a friend during his exile at Saint Helena writes in her Recollections. “In fact, Napoleon’s voice was most

As far as living legends of music go, for me, Steve Reich is pretty up there. A pioneer of minimalism, this New Yorker’s hypnotically enthralling music has been captivating people since his early days in the 1960s, and he shows

Composers know only too well the difficulty of maintaining the highest quality of craftsmanship and expression across genres. Beethoven wrote some real clunkers, as did Schumann and Rachmaninoff. Because Brahms very carefully controlled his output—we know that he mercilessly burned