Category Musical Passion
Oh Holy Night and the Difference a Year Makes
Oh Holy Night has long been my favorite Christmas song – I love the wonder the music conveys; it seems to perfectly capture the mood of the nativity moment from the Christmas story. It’s also just a beautiful collection of notes, with highs and lows and plenty of drama! Last year as Christmas approached I […]
“I’ve always wanted to ________.”
I’ve always wanted to play the violin. I don’t really know why, except to say that in the Wichita Public Schools we could start string instruments in the fourth grade, a year before any other kind. But after I stopped playing the violin in the sixth grade, I occasionally considered starting back up. It was less […]
Shared Experience and Challenges
Well, this Gavotte is magnificently difficult. I talked to Teacher yesterday about other people’s view of the piece – perhaps I mentioned before that she says kids tend to hate it. She says she likes it (she does not necessarily love them all) but that many, many people get it “good enough” and then never […]
A. Thomas and his Gavotte from Mignon
According to Wikipedia, Ambroise Thomas was a French composer, primarily of operas, who lived a long life in the 19th century. The son of musicians, his early music education and jump on his performance career doubtless paved the way for his lifetime of moderate success. For the majority of his life, he enjoyed a robust […]
The Mutter Virtuosi Play Chicago
Chicago’s Symphony Center is a lovely place – an intimate enough setting to see one of the greatest symphonies in the world on a normal day. It’s not at all off of normal for the hall to host greats, but even Symphony Center doesn’t get a star like Anne-Sophie Mutter everyday – the German violin […]
The Mutter Virtuosi – Seasons, Ringtones, and an Octet
I spent a good chunk of yesterday reading up on Anne-Sophie Mutter, and listening to her play. I’ve also been reading and learning more about the program I will hear Wednesday night – Vivaldi and The Four Seasons, Mendelsohn’s Octet, and a commissioned work by Currier called Ringtones. I’m especially excited about the program. Vivaldi’s […]
Greats Provide Access to the Past
Sunday night Michael and I watched a 2013 episode of Live from Lincoln Center on Youtube – the episode featured a chamber music setting for a tribute to Mendelsohn, the great composer. Playing for us were none other than Emanuel Ax on the piano, Yo Yo Ma on the cello, and Izhak Perlman on the […]
Evil Music
The height of political madness is over for this moment – every cycle we continue to waste more and more money on political ads to help us decide who to send to Washington and to statehouses to do nothing. We sell ourselves to others sometimes, but more often than not the ads end up selling […]
Allusive Power and The Four Seasons
Two weeks from tomorrow I’m going to see Anne-Sophie Mutter and the Mutter Virtuosi. Part of the program is Vivaldi’s masterpiece The Four Seasons, so I’ve been learning more about the work in an effort to maximize my appreciation of the performance. Vivaldi was a Baroque composer, priest, and musician. He wrote The Four Seasons […]
Ryan Libel 