All Blog Posts (518)

Latest posting from correspondent Laurence Vittes:

With fight-to-the-finish playoffs taking place in professional basketball and hockey, the Pacifica Quartet is enduring their own kind of endurance test by taking on a complete Shostakovich cycle on four successive nights.

Though not as grueling as the Mandelring Quartet's feat at last year's Salzburg Festival, when the German ensemble fit the four concerts into only two days, the challenge of playing for the first time…

On Saturday, June 2, at 1:30 pm, violinist Lara St. John and Polkstra will be shooting a video of "Kosher Chicken Dance" in Central Park (choreographed by Stephanie Cadman). She is inviting "inane New Yorkers who'd like to join in", to meet at the W 81st St entrance. All are welcome!

Chamber-music seminars? Orchestral intensives? Fiddle camps? Check out our searchable online Summer Study Guide. http://bit.ly/KRrRcm

‘Strings’ contributor, educator and violinist Laurel Thomsen will perform a live webcast with guitarist Doug Young and her new Bright Side Band on Thursday, May 24, at 7PM (PDT). http://bit.ly/LoCvpC

Check out Strings Guide series Improve Your Bowing, with text and instructional video on bowing fundamentals by Laurel Thomsen.

http://www.bam8.com

This is the other camp that I will be at as well! Hope to see you and one or both of these camps!

Note**Grammy award winning fiddle instructor**

http://bobbyboatrightwesternswingmusiccamp.com

I would like to invite all my new friends to a couple of camps that I will be attending this summer.

Having just returned from the biennial General Meeting of the American Federation of Violin and Bow Makers, I have a deeper sense of the group's purpose: to unite a group of independent-minded people and to create a community for sharing.

Though gathering violin and bow makers can be a bit like herding cats, the meeting, held May 9–13 in New Orleans, was a thrill-ride for those interested in the history of violin and bow making.

Every good meeting needs a focus, and the…

What happens in the brain during improvisation, and how do we use this to get better at improvising?

This is exactly the thing Dr. Martin Norgaard researched for his doctorate in music education.

Now a professor at Georgia State University, Martin got together with me recently to talk a little about his findings, share  approaches to teaching improvisation and jazz violin, and play some tunes. Martin is a thought leader in our niche and one of…

Virtual classroom will serve K-12 students and string teachers, bringing the Juilliard School's world-class faculty and resources to string players around the world. Read more.

The New York Philharmonic, under the baton of of music director Alan Gilbert, performed Sunday, May 13, on the first of a two-night stand at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, and the thundering applause at the close of its encore performance of Bernstein's "Lonely Town: Pas de deux from On the Town" said it all.

The concert was part of a tour of six California cities and, remarkably, the first US tour for the venerable New York Phil since Gilbert took the reins three years…

Everyone knows this picture, a demonstration of the lengths we'll go to preserve a delicate instrument.


Don't know about you, but I find this to be more along the lines of accurate. It's been really rainy lately.

 
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I’m sharing with you today the poster design I’ve done for our next orchestra concert. The major work will be Shostakovich’s 5^th symphony besides Bizet Carmen’s second suite and Smetana’s Vysehrad.   I think the poster speaks for itself with the predominant red (traditional revolutionary symbol), and the number 5 trapped between the iconic hammer and sickle suggesting the pressure/oppression Shostakovich had to go through under the regime.…

Two dozen semi-finalists are competing this week (May 7-12) for the notoriety of being top gun at the 2012 Queen Elisabeth Int'l Violin Competition.

Top prize—aka the Queen Fabiola Prize—is 25,000 EUR, a series of concert proposals, and the use of the "Huggins" Stradivari (1708), on loan for a period of three years by the Nippon Music Foundation.

The 12 finalists will be selected Saturday, May 12.

The final rounds will be held May 21-26.

The 15-member jury panel…

A quick-and-easy guide to evaluating a new stick

• Type of Material  Brazilwood (prices usually run between $50 and $200); Pernambuco (priced anywhere from $100 to $10,000 or more); carbon fiber (priced anywhere between $50 and several thousand dollars); fiberglass (usually the lowest-priced option).

• Sound  Look for a bow that will give both a smooth, broad sound and at the same time possesses great clarity of focus and…

I started studying with Mr. Totenberg when I was 14. My previous teacher, the esteemed Zinaida Gilels, had just passed away and insisted prior to her death that I continue my studies “only with Roman Totenberg.” When I arrived for my first lesson and rang the bell, Mr. Totenberg answered the door himself. He was impeccably dressed, wearing a suit and pocket square, had a soft understated smile, and a confident but not overbearing presence. He spoke to me in Russian though I learned he also…

MUSIC & ARTS LESSONS

from

RUSLAN BIRYUKOV, MA

CELLO

"http://www.CelloArt.com"

"An astonishing young cellist Ruslan Biryukov. The audience gave the concert a standing ovation. If the first concert is any consideration, I would get my tickets early!" -- Wendy Kikkert, Beverly Hills Outlook

"To say the performance was incredible would not do it justice." - Jose Ruiz, Review Plays

"Ruslan is…

Anna Stafford-Heifetz writes:

"I wish someone had held a class on the music business when I was at music school. We learned much about playing our instruments, but almost nothing about the business.

"At 23, Los Angeles seemed like some mysterious force that I could tackle no problem with hard work, discipline, and a brilliantly placed stroke of luck. Soon, I thought, very soon, I would be walking down the golden aisle of fame and fortune, with people dying to meet me and shake…

"You can almost hear the sparks flying off the violin during the myriad technical challenges of POEME.  A document of Skowronski's halcyon days, APERCU seethes with ferocious, youthful confidence.

Times are tough, and money's tight, but you might just want to help this wonderful and worthwhile string program:

http://bit.ly/IiOwlC