We are inundated by anniversaries to jog our musical memories, and this year is the year of Aaron Copland, born 100 years ago. To celebrate the occasion, Copland festivals are sprouting up around the country like dandelions in the spring. Copland has become an American icon. The music of the kid from Brooklyn, the son […]
Joe Kahn
Posted inMusic
A double life
How does a good Hungarian boy, trained in the best conservatories in Leipzig, Germany, end up as the dean of film music composers in Hollywood? Until the mid-1940s, many respected classical composers such as Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Milhaud, Honegger and Copland wrote film music on the side and enjoyed it (and the money they made). But […]
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Tradition and transformation
Chinese musical tradition evolved mostly independently from that of the West, and, until the détente of the 1970s, there were few attempts to bring the two traditions together. Over the last few decades, there has been an increasing exchange of music and musicians between China and the rest of the world, and today, more and […]
Posted inNews
Jan Dismas Zelenka: Six Trio Sonatas
Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679-1748) is not a household name. A Bohemian composer and virtuoso violone (double-bass) player, he spent most of his professional life as violone player and Kapellmeister in Dresden at the court of Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. As a composer, Zelenka had a late start–around age 40–and […]
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Romeo, Romeo
Among the casualties of this week’s blizzard was a rare performance by the North Carolina Symphony of orchestral excerpts from Hector Berlioz’s “dramatic symphony,” Roméo et Juliette. We were planning to give the pre-concert lecture for Friday’s performance. Now, with lots of space and nothing to review, we thought we’d share some of our musings […]