The number of symphony orchestras in China has grown exponentially over the last couple of years. One of the newest kids on the block is the Suzhou Symphony Orchestra founded in 2016. This enormous orchestral flowering has in large part

It seems a simple question, doesn’t it? And the simple answer is that music lessons are for learning music / a musical instrument. But learning an instrument, either via formal music lessons or self-teaching, offers so much more. Gustav Holst:

What’s your local subway system like? Like being in a tiled basement, somewhat dimly lit, and all you hear are the rumbles and screeches of the trains? In a new collaboration between the HK Philharmonic and the MTR in Hong

Our popular series forgotten cellists from 2018 continues with several outstanding artists you may not know of. One-thousand students claim cellist Harvey Shapiro the “cello doctor” was the single greatest influence in their lives. The esteemed pedagogue taught at Juilliard

After almost a lifetime of music-making and trying to figure out what it is saying, I’m coming closer to the thought that the message of music is the music itself. For an experiment in discovery, I’ve been listening to all

The winner of the 1966 Leeds International Piano Competition, Spanish pianist Rafael Orozco (1946-1996) was born into a musical family and enrolled at the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Córdoba at the age of 7. He later studied at the

A natural process for the creative artist is to reproduce what he admires. In the case of composers, it translates as composing the music that they heard and enjoyed, or the music that they want to hear. Of course, the

It’s hard to believe Alfred Brendel turned 90 at the start of 2021. He’s been a part of my musical landscape since I was a teenager, when my mother, who was a great fan of Brendel and admired him in