We think of patrons in music associated with the music of earlier times: Florentine lords and leaders, the Pope, or all those Russian princesses who propped up Russian composers. In America, though, it was the daughter of Chicago wholesaler who

Ralph Vaughan Williams was already an established composer at the onset of the First World War. By 1914, he had created a considerable body of works, including two symphonies and various works for orchestra, an opera and a number of

“Listen to Awesomeness” is a contemporary jargon used to market products related to focused listening – from audiobooks to earphones to DJs streaming music online. Even though the expression rarely exists in the classical music arena, it aptly reflects my

Did the diarist Samuel Pepys alert us to women conductors in 17th century London? There we went and eat and drank and heard musique at the Globe, and saw the simple motion that is there of a woman with a

Trench warfare, which has since been described as “futility in conflict,” gained its horrifying notoriety on the Western Front in the First World War. By the time the dust and poisonous gas clouds had settled on the “war to end

The late-19th and early 20th centuries saw a new phenomenon: all-women orchestras. Kept out of the traditional orchestras by reason of gender (it certainly wasn’t because of talent), women musicians came together to form their own orchestras.

A brand new concert hall built on a former industrial site reinvigorates the city and unveils a new chapter for its local orchestra. Sounds like an exemplary story from Hamburg. Well I am actually referring to Zürich in Switzerland.

Further to my previous article – “Voices from the Verbier Festival Academy I”, here are more comments from the “2017 Musicians”.