Category Modern Family
Perlman and Stern and Me
I’ve been slowly getting around to all nine of the CDs in the Perlman collection that my parents gave me for my birthday back in May – I’ve been taking them wildly out of order, but this morning I loaded up the first CD from the collection into iTunes. It opens with the Bach Concerto […]
Pride Day 2016 – for Pulse and for Humanity
Early in my young gay life, one gay club meant everything. The part of my coming out in Wichita, Kansas that didn’t happen late nights at Denny’s with friends happened at a place called “The Our Fantasy Complex,” which everyone called “Fantasy” for short. From its opening in the 1970s until closing for good just […]
Cradle Song
Brahms’s Opus 49 was published in 1868; the great composer worked alongside Clara Schuman, the noted pianist, for many compositions, and it was she who first debuted the song on piano the following year. Brahms titled the piece, Wiegenlied: Guten Abend, Gute Nacht, and it is indeed a song with words, sung for its debut […]
New York in June
I’m in New York City for the third time in under nine months, a rare treat for me, who tends to get here about once a year. While we have some musical plans for tomorrow, so far the trip has provided only the backdrop music of this great city – our boutique hotel pipes soft […]
Heifetz and the Bridge that Auer Built
Jascha Heifetz was born at the temporal conjunction of Romantic and modern music – his most influential teacher was an aging Leopold Auer, the man to whom Tchaikovsky dedicated one of the most significant pieces that exists in the violin repertoire, and my personal favorite – the Great Concerto. While Auer initially and quite famously […]
Musical Gifts
I totally hit the jackpot on my birthday Tuesday, in every way – including in the loot department. Prior to my lesson, Michael arranged the gifts my parents and his dad had sent along with his own, and I was happy to find a musical bounty. A new music stand! I bought an inexpensive one […]
On Getting to 40
Teacher cancelled last week’s lesson, and when I wrote her back to confirm I mentioned that our next lesson would happen on my 40th birthday, which happens to be today. I said that I couldn’t imagine a better way to start my new decade than with a lesson – beginning the violin was undoubtedly one […]
Setting the Mood, Softly
Michael and I are in Wichita for our annual Christmas with family trip, and yesterday we shared meals first with my parents at their house, then at my grandmother’s house a few short miles away. On both occasions, the two generations up from us had given attention to background Christmas music. Mom and Dad had […]
Goodbyes
Last night my friends popped into the dojo to say goodbye – this is my ten year old friend who introduced me to Teacher, and her parents. They are moving to Ohio because Mom is an academic and took a new gig there. Dad is a musician, a flutist, who has encouraged me to look […]
Ryan Libel 