Posts Tagged ‘music’
Small world
You may have noticed that we quite frequently air performances by the French conductor, Marc Minkowski, on WBJC. He founded the group, Musicians of the Louvre, in the 1980s and has recorded quite a substantial amount of French music with them—mostly Baroque, but also composers like Offenbach, Bizet and Berlioz. Well, I’ve discovered that he […]
“Summertime…”
As the cicada choruses begin to vie with each other, it’s an indication that we have reached the dog days of summer. One of the things I love about living in America is how clearly demarcated the seasons are: the vibrant fall, the Christmas card snow scenes of winter, the rejuvenation of spring, and then […]
Sounds of Summer
There are certain pop songs or classical pieces that will always make me think of summer. One is Prince’s “Raspberry Beret”, which I heard on my way to work this morning & thought – perfect! Not only do the song’s flippant lyrics & upbeat tempo seem appropriate for warm weather & sunny skies, the album […]
B(l)iss
I would love to be a fly on the wall when Jonathan Biss is practicing in the privacy of his apartment to see if he is as physical then as he is on the concert platform. He is what you might call and mover and shaker in front of the keyboard–bending low, arcing back, fidgeting […]
My first time…
Diana Ross, WBJC’s website maestra, has asked us to write about our earliest musical experience, inspired by the moving stories that have been coming in from our members. My mother’s sister was a fine pianist by all accounts (she died when I was young so I could never form my own opinion) and my mother […]
All about the music
Sometimes, when you go to hear a concert it is the performer who is the star of the show. Take someone like the phenomenal Lang Lang, for example, with his high tech performances that have him approaching the keyboard almost as if it is a computer console. It is riveting and exciting and, almost no […]
Teju Cole’s Open City
The Nigerian writer, Teju Cole, who was born in the US, grew up in Nigeria, and now lives in Brooklyn, visited the MFA Reading Program at the University of Baltimore recently, and we had the great privilege of having him visit our International Writing Workshop beforehand. He is also a photographer and an art historian […]
Poulenc plays!
I went along to the Candlelight Concert at Second Presbyterian Church on Sunday evening especially to hear Francis Poulenc’s Sextet for Piano and Winds with members of the Baltimore Symphony and Sylvie Beaudoin. Poulenc was pretty much self taught, and he learned from the music that he liked. He said his gods were Bach, Mozart, […]
“Coming to grips with the composer’s central thought”
You can tell when the big guns come to town by who is in the audience. I saw Leon Fleisher walking up aisle at Shriver Hall yesterday evening during the intermission of Richard Goode’s recital. It’s been a couple of decades since Goode played on the Shriver Hall Concert Series, and it was certainly wonderful […]
