A few weeks ago, I met the parent of one of my former piano students at an event. I was pleased to hear that the student (we’ll call her Jane) was now studying English Literature at one of the UK’s

With a joyous call on his horn, Siegfried announces his presence in the great forest of Fafner. Turned into a dragon by the lure of the Ring, Fafner, one of the two giants who built Valhalla for Wotan, is being

By the time Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) reached his 14th birthday, he already had an impressive variety and number of works in his compositional portfolio. In fact, between 1821 and 1823 alone, he composed a total of 12 symphonies for strings.

In the first part of this article “A Major Minor Opera: Nadia Boulanger’s La Ville morte, A History”, we explored the background of Nadia Boulanger’s opera. Jumping forward to the modern day, the first staging of the full opera was

This week, Greek National Opera (GNO) in Athens is putting on the third performance of Nadia Boulanger’s only opera, La ville morte. Written in collaboration with her mentor, Raoul Pugno, the opera is only now in the 21st century, seeing

Cellist Lynn Harrell, winner of the inaugural Avery Fisher Prize and two Grammy Awards had the ability to generate a penetrating richness of sound, and to communicate with tremendous personal warmth. A formidable technician, Harrell was appointed principal cellist of

The orchestra is mighty, chords resonating in a large space, the timpani emphasizing the vastness of the concept. It’s a bit Wagnerian – some ideas seem like they might do well in Die Walküre or perhaps there’s a foreshadowing of

“I do not bow to anyone, except to my own conscience and our own noble Lady Music” January is a busy time for lovers of classical music as we celebrate the birthdays of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Franz Schubert on