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Music is Performance
After attending live music festivals here in Australia recently, this has more than cemented my already long-held view that music is performance. Over the two large festivals where around 10,000 music lovers paid their money and turned up to hear
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How Do Rehearsals Work?
The rehearsal room of an orchestra is a strange place. We musicians take it for granted, but for people on the outside it can seem like the rehearsal is a mysterious place with its own customs, rituals and etiquette. Things
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The Best Performances
“Song to the Moon” by Antonín Dvořák
Antonín Dvořák wrote some of the most memorable melodies in all of music. And from the very beginning he wanted to be known as an opera composer. Since he was active during a time when Czech national opera was being
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On Taking, and Giving Advice, for Musicians
Musicians, especially young musicians, are bombarded with advice over the course of their career, especially in those early, fledgling years. Most advice will come from teachers, but also from peers, colleagues, friends, promoters, agents and critics. Knowing how to take
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Who Owns What?
Stories on Intellectual Property; Copyrights and Royalties
Royalties are quite unique to the music world; indeed composers and songwriters benefit from the advantage of being rewarded for each active and passive use of their works. While the painter, for instance, does not earn each time his work
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Classical Music Beyond the Concert Stage: Ten Classical Pieces Used in Commercials
Have you ever heard any advertisement music on the radio and TV that sounds familiar to you? A lot of them are excerpts or adaptations from classical music. I am going to share with you ten pieces that have been
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Encouraging Engagement With Classical Music
Encouraging people to engage with and listen to classical music is an ongoing preoccupation for musicians, concert promoters, venue managers, critics and others. The perennial anxiety is that classical music is ‘dying’ (it’s not) and that it needs to attract
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On My Music Desk……
Franz Schubert – Impromptu in G-flat, D899/3
Schubert’s first set of Impromptus (D899) are amongst my most favourite pieces of piano music, ever since my mother, who admired the pianist Alfred Brendel, bought me the score of the Impromptus and Moments Musicaux after hearing Brendel perform them
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