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Here’s a question: Should we really care about the personal lives of the composers we admire? When we don’t know anything about their lives, we certainly…

I attended a concert recently that featured a performance of the Schubert Fantasy in F Minor for piano four-hands. The Schubert Fantasy is a piece I’ve…

I always enjoy telling the story of how the piano got its name. Piano means “soft,” in Italian, and it seems a little strange that an instrument that can…

If you’d like a remarkable example of the genius of Leonard Bernstein, I recommend that you listen – or listen again – to the song “Cool,” from West Side…

I’ve spoken about this before, but the subject seems to come up a lot, so why not go over it again: in America, 99.9 per cent of the people who play the…

I wonder what today’s voice teachers would think of the composer Gioacchino Rossini’s ideas for a vocal training curriculum. According to Rossini,…

Many great composers have also been great pianists, genu-in virtuosos who in addition to composing led successful careers as performers. One gifted…

Of the many musical terms that have made their way into general usage, one of the most colorful—and useful—is Prima donna. These days the term gets…

If you like beautiful old keyboard instruments, not to mention beautiful small museums, I strongly recommend that you pay a visit to the Carolina Music…

My cousin Stephen and his wife, Kim Lee, are scientists, and they’ve developed a malaria vaccine that may one day save millions of lives. It’s taken them…