Alight is Sheffield’s contribution to the BBC/LOCOG organised Music Nation weekend, part of the Cultural Olympiad that celebrates London’s hosting of the Olympic and Paralympic games this coming summer, and it takes place on 3 March 2012. The day culminates with a concert called Alight: Twilight, which takes place at Sheffield City Hall, and the concert […]
Every year the Weill Music Institute, Carnegie Hall’s music education and community programming arm, presents a Creative Learning Project as part of its program season. In just a few weeks, works by a trio of young composers—Gabriel Smallwood from Florence, South Carolina, Anthony Constantino from Tucson, Arizona and Thomas Reeves from New York City—will be […]
In March of last year, I received a letter from a young composer by the name of Julian Pombo, who had won the Strictly Composing competition organised as part of the UK government’s Year Of Music initiative. Julian wrote his winning piece, a tango called Amor Joven, using Sibelius Student, and we were so thrilled with […]
Gutbucket are a four-piece band from Brooklyn who, in the words of Chris Barton of the LA Times, work “a jagged yet fertile seam between jazz and rock.” This past May, they played at REDCAT – the Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater in the Disney Concert Hall complex in downtown Los Angeles – with […]
Bob James is a jazz pianist, composer and arranger whose career has spanned five decades. Having been discovered by Quincy Jones in 1963, he has recorded 37 solo albums to date and played on countless more by other artists. Perhaps best known for Angela, the theme tune to 1970s US sitcom Taxi, an example of […]
Last Thursday, a remarkable world premiere took place in Christchurch, New Zealand, of a new work by an eight-year-old composer, Bob Gaudin, which depicts his experience of the earthquake that struck the city in February. From the web site of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra: Bob was practising with his band in his school music […]
Young composer Jared Richardson was profiled this past weekend in the Times Colonist newspaper in Canada. Having only started composing a couple of years ago, this 17-year-old high school student has had a piece read by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra at a free public performance this past Monday. The piece, Riders of the West, was […]
The Herald, a national newspaper in Scotland, this week told the story of former Royal Scottish National Orchestra trombonist Bryan Free’s quest to revive a long-lost trombone concerto by the almost-forgotten composer Nathaniel Shilkret, a 15-year journey that ends tonight with the piece’s UK premiere in Edinburgh. Bryan worked on restoring the score and parts […]
Last night I had the privilege of attending the first of this year’s three Music For Youth Schools Prom concerts. Every November, more than 3,000 young musicians from schools around the United Kingdom come together to put on a series of three concerts showcasing the remarkable breadth and depth of music making that goes on […]
A few weeks ago, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra played the opening gala concert of the 2010/2011 season at Powell Hall in St. Louis, Missouri. The main attraction was American soprano Renée Fleming, who would be singing some crowd-pleasing, favourite arias, ideal for a high-profile fundraising concert. However, this year’s gala concert would also feature […]