Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) wrote his orchestral showpiece The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra in 1946 as a commission for an educational film on the instruments of the orchestra. Britten used a theme from the Baroque British composer Henry Purcell

20-year old Romanian cellist Andrei Ioniță was awarded the Gold Medal in the cello section of the 2015 Tchaikovsky Competition. A laureate of many other competitions, he also took first prize at the Aram Khachaturian International Competition in 2013, and

Sweden’s best Romantic composer Franz Berwald (1796-1868) holds the dubious distinction of being one of the most neglected composers in music history. In fact, he was so obscure that in 1946 the Swedish postal service, given the choice between putting

Laments continued to be very special works – rarely written and always filled with a very high emotional intensity. Elegies, on the other hand, were more of a late-19th-century phenomenon. Rather than heart-felt cries of despair, they were more like

Every year on August 6, Japan becomes a nation of mourning. Seventy years ago, the city of Hiroshima was incinerated by an atomic bomb nicknamed “Little Boy.” Three days later the utter destruction of Nagasaki followed. At the human cost

Though not yet 30 years old, Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen already has an impressive list of awards and prizes to her name – the Léonie Sonning Music Prize, Kirsten Flagstad Award, 2014 three prizes at the 2015 Beveldere Competition and,

Isabelle Vengerova. Her students would wait in fearful anticipation dreading her bitingly acerbic pronouncements—to name a few—Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein, Lucas Foss, Gary Graffman, Abby Simon, Gilbert Kalish, Lillian Kallir and Menahem Pressler, an illustrious group of musicians, pianists and

Claude Debussy’s entire musical outlook changed after he experienced the subtle and graceful arts of Japan. As a contrast to the filled and busy impressionist paintings that surrounded him, many of the Japanese woodcuts he admired were just as filled