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A Lincoln Center Christmas in Chicago
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center is a gifted group of over 150 world-class artists dedicated to performing and promoting chamber music. Last night an ensemble from the group treated Chicago with a winter-welcoming special – The Brandenburg Concertos. Michael and I had good seats for the magnificent performance at the Harris Theatre adjacent […]
Art and Science
Lately, Teacher has been working with me on dynamics. Loudness is, of course, one of our universe’s seemingly infinite continuums. The loudest loud can always be shouted down by something else; the softest soft can be softer. An infinity stretches between. Within the oeuvre of just one man, dynamics help create the delicate dance of […]
Great 8 with Anne Sophie
The New York Times has a weekly feature that presents a nicely curated set of eight classical music videos (usually YouTube) freely available online. I don’t know how old the feature is, but I’ve noticed sets the last three weeks. Last night, I was exploring this week’s and became enamored of a Brahms Double Concerto […]
Shifting Away
If the final Seitz concerto movement exists in the Suzuki repertoire to help students conquer double stops, the Vivaldi concerto’s job must be to ensure that shifting to third position and back becomes old hat. I have a whole book of position shifting exercises that I’ve dabbled with – I daresay more focus there would […]
The Way of Life Long Learning
One of my major goals in taking up the violin as an adult was to add another dimension to my pursuit as a lifelong student. My martial arts training has been immeasurably important to me for many reasons, but one of the most profound is the way it’s helped me internalize learning as a process […]
Taste of Ravel
I’ve been digging into the music of Maurice Ravel a bit more in anticipation of a Perlman recital we’re attending toward the end of April. In addition to works by Beethoven, Vivaldi, and Schumann, Perlman will play Ravel’s Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 2 in G Major. The piece is clearly influenced by Jazz, […]
Reading up on Carmen
This coming Friday we’re off to the opera with some friends – the renowned Lyric of Chicago’s current production of the Bizet classic Carmen. Though I’ve never been to the Lyric before, and I have seen very little opera otherwise, I do know that it’s best to learn plenty before going. So this morning I’ve […]
Minors, Movement, and Mutes
I’m working on a new etude, a largo piece from the Wohlfahrt book in A minor. In addition to being my first A minor piece, Teacher brought it out because it will help me practice my bowing angles, which have been giving me fits. Long, slow bows are what the piece is about, and that’s […]
Time and Angles
When I started playing over three years ago, my practice sessions wouldn’t last more than 45 minutes, but as the months went by I started to increase my practice time. I worked up to days when I kept it up for over two hours. But then in July of 2015, I had a pretty significant […]
Ryan Libel 