We humans seem to love comeback stories, and there is no comeback quite as compelling in the classical music world as Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto. It was written three years after the disastrous premiere of his First Symphony, a premiere so catastrophic that it lives on ...Show more
Handel Messiah w/ Aram Demirjian
A piece that I have been asked to cover probably a dozen times is Handel's Messiah. It's a piece I love, but a piece that I've never conducted or played, and so therefore I don't know it incredibly well. There are plenty of pieces like this in the repertoire, and so I've decided ...Show more
Synopsis On today’s date in 2020, a new cello concerto by the American composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich was given its premiere in Fort Lauderdale, by cellist Zuill Bailey the South Florida Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sebrina María Alfonso, the same performers who had commissione ...Show more
Synopsis A concerto, according to Webster’s Dictionary, is “a piece for one or more soloists and orchestra with three contrasting movements.” And for most classical music fans, “concerto” means one of big romantic ones by Beethoven or Tchaikovsky, works in which there is a kind o ...Show more
How Mozart's Requiem, written when he was dying, has touched and changed people's lives. Crime writer Val McDermid recalls how this music helped her after the loss of her father. Hypnotist Athanasios Komianos recounts how the piece took him to the darker side of the spirit world. ...Show more
Violinists from around the world, a journalist and an Archers legend explain why Bruch's Violin Concerto in G minor holds particular significance for them.A Violin Concerto in G minor, Opus 26, became the best-known work of the German composer Max Bruch. Originally written in 186 ...Show more