Rachmaninoff played Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini

Although recording is not very good, you can listen most original version.

Performance turns "happy news" into "nightmare"

This is a famous piece in china. The original title was "北京喜讯传边塞". But because all the players are very amateur, so it became "北京噩耗传边塞"

Carrot clarinet !!!

Awesome!!!!   Use the carrot to make the small and simple (clarinet) !!  The sound still nice!!!!  

That's the best way to politely tell someone don't turn on the mobile phone...

When being rudely interrupted by a cell phone during his concert, a violinist surprised the audience by playing along with the ringtone (Nokia). It's always happen in live performance even in Hong Kong, China, Germany, France. It's interrupt the performers and audience. The main point is Lukas Kmit use a polite way to pass a message to the audience PLEASE turn off your mobile phone. Anyway, we need to learn how to respect performers because they work very hard, it's a big interruption.

World's Funniest Classical Music Performances

Awesome!!! We can use our Trombone, Violin, Saxophone, Clarinet to perform some beautiful music. In the video, they will show you how to perform some well-known music without using musical instrument and you never think it should be happen!! Especially the first music from Carmen by Bizet, after I watch it I laugh out very loud. If Bach, Beethoven and Mozart watch this video I'm pretty sure that they will laugh out louder than me and arrange the music once again!

Can we play our music instruments like Jörgen van Rijen??

Jörgen van Rijen is Principal Trombone at the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. Jörgen performs Slipstream for Trombone solo and loop station. It's a funny and interesting music because the performer play the music without score and he is improvising different sounds effect and melody. Slipstream become popular and it's part of improvisation. Many Jazz and pop brass players like perform Slipstream it's a good way to entertain our audience. I like listen to Slipstream too! Have Fun!!

Can a typewriter became a standard instrument in orchestra?

We can have Theremin performed with the orchestra, but why not a typewriter?

The Typewriter is a novelty instrumental piece written by Leroy Anderson in 1950. Its name refers to the fact that its performance requires a typewriter, which is used on stage: keystrokes, the typewriter bell, and the carriage return mechanism provide a major component of the piece.

Ode to joy?!

Most of us would say that Beethoven's 9th Symphony is about brotherhood. Now listen to what the real maestro think of this piece. "Beethoven was struggling, struggling for peace, for fulfillment of spirit, for serenity and triumphant joy." Pay attention to how Beethoven interpret humanity. Be real human.

Animal is a musician?

In this video, we can see the relationship between animal and music. As we know that animals will have response to music. But they also create music and inspire some musicians like Mozart. For example,from the last movement of his Piano Concerto in G Major, he tries to match the song of starling.

Not only birds, whales will make music too. In their sound, we can find many human musical concepts like "call and response" etc.

"Story" by John Cage

This choral music is interesting. It only uses "once upon a time, the world was round, and you could go on it around and around." such short phrase to extend the music. In the music, we can hear fews composition techniques like augmentation, diminution etc. And when she sings the word "round", you can hear the feeling of imitate the idea of "round".

Nadia Boulanger on music and genius. Is it appropriate to use genius to describe a person?

Nadia Boulanger, a famous teacher who inspired many great composers including Stravinsky, Elliott Carter and Philip Glass, also the sister of Lily Boulanger, talked about music and genius on the aspect of pedagogy. After watching the interview, my idea of genius is a person with obsessive love with music who would do anything for it and can not live without it. Hmm...it is not easy and rare to become a genius, indeed.

More on choral works x 'technology'

A response to Michael's post on Whitacre's music :)

Can you whistle through the Mozart's The Queen of the Night Aria?

Mozart's "The Queen of the Night" is one of the most demanding opera aria that it requires the soprano to sing the high F twice.

Michael Barimo is an American professional whistler with a range of more than three octaves. Like operatic singers do, his whistling has a lot of vibrato and in a quite cantabile style. This superb performance was given at a private party at Joshua Bell’s home in New York City. You can actually seeing him holding a violin, as well as Hyung-ki Joo from the famous music-comedian group "Igudesman and Joo", at the back in the video. If you want to meet Joshua Bell, maybe the best way is not practicing your proper instruments but an unexpected one.

The Lumiphonic Creature Choir - sing and interact with the giant heads

A really funny and amazing multimedia project that combine audio and visual. The Lumiphonic Creature Choir is the creation of artist Mark Bolotin and his company Synarcade Audio-Visuals, where a group of musicians and audience members both play, trigger and interact live with a giant twelve-headed audio-visual instrument. In the past, there were musician and artist use the audio-visual instrument to create complex real-time Gregorian chants, beat-boxing mashups, strange stream-of-consciousness poetry .

Contemporary choral works x technology

Time for something different after learning about all the western traditions!

Eric Whitacre, one of the most renowned contemporary choral composer in the world. Pieces by him were frequently performed all over the world. But what's so special about his works? Listen to this!

 

Warm harmony created by extensive use of cluster chords. You probably have never experience something that great. And, this is the power of human voices!!

Another work by Whitacre - Cloudburst, Composed with different style. Experience the modern composition technique.

Last but not least, the Virtual Choir. Collecting sound clips from singers all over the world. You can contribute just as you want to. This is modern technology, which brings people from all over the world to make good music.

The Rite of spring premiered at 103 years ago today

Yeah!!! 103 years ago today - May 29th, 1913, Russian composer Igor Stravinsky debuted The Rite of Spring before a Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris with a ballet performance. It was written for the 1913 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company; the original choreography was by Vaslav Nijinsky, with stage designs and costumes by Nicholas Roerich. Here is the version which conducted by Leonard Bernstein and played by the London Symphony Orchestra in 1958.

Incredible Concert Halls Around the World

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrtOubAKBX0

There are ten concert hall (just the front side) showed around the world in this video. They have special shape design!!!

Meet the Theremin

We heard the Ondes Martenot in Honegger's oratorio Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher in class. Perhaps I should introduce its close cousin, the Theremin too.
Who knows, maybe we can include this 'solo instrument' in the concerto trial next year??


More on the Theremin here:
http://www.thereminworld.com/Article/14232/what-s-a-theremin-

A mixture of choral music and cute animals!

An Australian choir describes a selection of funny animal pictures through singing. Composer Gordon Hamilton took inspiration from the online list of the 50 cutest things that ever happened, choosing a top nine including a baby elephant who spent a day at the beach, 'Boo' the Pomeranian dog, and a basset hound race. This video has received almost equal number of thumbs up and thumbs down responses. Do you think that it is a good mixture of choral music and cute animals?

Peter and the Wolf

Peter and the Wolf is a children's story composed by Prokofiev. Each character in the story is represented by a particular instrument and a musical theme. In this video, the story is transformed into a play. The characters are performed by children.

Another counting numbers: Einstein on the Beach by Philip Glass

After reading Ian's post, it let me think of Philip Glass's opera, Einstein on the Beach. It composed in 1976 and directed by theatrical producer Robert Wilson. It is Glass's first and the longest opera, it take approximately five hours in full performance without intermission. Einstein on the Beach broke all the rules of opera. It was in four interconnected acts, and the acts were intersected by what Glass and Wilson called "knee plays" - brief interludes that also provided time for scenery changes. The text consisted of numbers, solfege syllables and some cryptic poems by Christopher Knowles.

Choir Counting Music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwe9_EKcApo

Quite interesting!! The song full of numbers. It can learn how to count the beat (consist of different rhythmic pattern) , especially for kids, with numbers as text.      
                                                                                                                                                   -Ian -

Flash mob choir

This is a flash party choir from Philadelphia, the music start from guitar that seats in the corner of a chair, then suddenly other members join to the music singing the carol. I love flash party because I think they show the surprise and tacit understanding in the video.

Song without words

This is a piece come from a video game 'assassin's creed II' . The piece was dominated by one female vocal. The vocal line is without words, only vowel. The composer seems want to create the mood by only the vocal timbre but not directly with word. I think it is interesting

Cat Duet by Rossini

This funny cat duet from G.A Rossini is for two soprano, the libretto is only consist of a "mieo" through out the music. This music usually performs as a "encore". I chose this link is because the boys imitate cat “mieo" and some other cat voices very well!

"Rocking" classical pieces

This is a piece of rock music compose by British band call "MUSE". The interesting part is, at the middle of the song, it featured a French chanson " Mon coeur s'ouvre a ta voix. Although the pronounciation is not quite right, I think they had a good try on putting classical piece with rock style

French horn playing: Past and Present

This video shows the history of the horn along with performance techniques. You can see the development of the horn in this video. It also tells you that how the horn players play the scale with the horns that without any valves.

Carl Orff - Carmina Burana

This was the dramatic rendition of Carl Orff's most famous piece of music. It shoud be performed with sets and costumes, but seldom performed as this nowadays. It was finally filmed by West German TV in 1975 with the close co-operation of Orff in honour of his 80th birthday.

Lucia Popp (soprano)
John van Kesteren (tenor)
Hermann Prey (baritone)
Bavarian Radio Chorus
Tolz Children's Choir
Munich Radio Orchestra conducted by Kurt Eichhorn
Film Directed by Jean Pierre Ponnelle

More about Ponelle here:
Biography and Filmography from IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0690454/

Obituary from the NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/12/obituaries/jean-pierre-ponnelle-56-is-dead-was-opera-director-and-designer.html

Paul Hindemith - When Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloom'd

A behind the scenes look at the piece of my presentation by the choral conductor, Robert Shaw.




Here's an excerpt of the work by the Taipei chamber singers:

Bolero with a twist

Ravel's Bolero in a circus setting with musicians of the Montreal Symphony and other performers in an absurd series of acts, and maestro Charles Dutoit as the ringmaster. The performance was originally produced for television in 1992.

More laughs for the weekend

In case you are not the biggest fan of Mahler symphonies, here's some help ...

Maybe this can be the solution to Mr. Leon Lai's recent crisis?

Four years and seven months are gone since the earthquake and the devastating tsunami struck Tohoku, Japan. Designed by Japanese architect Arata Isozaki and British sculptor Anish Kapoor, ARK NOVA a gigantic mobile concert hall holds an international music festival in Fukushima.




www.ark-nova.com

Wolf tones for wolves

Laurel Braitman, historian,anthropologist of science and New York Times bestseller, has been studying the effects of music on animals in captivity. Observing the bluegrass concert performed exclusively to 52 residents of Wolf Haven in Washington, Braitman remarked that many of the animals moved as close as they could to the band. “The only indicator I have is that they didn’t leave,” she says. “And in fact, that’s how a lot of musicians judge the success of their shows — did people not leave?”

Are we better than elephants, or not?

Research shows that animals, large or small, do respond to music physically and emotionally. In case you haven't read about it, here's the first evidence:

NYPO musicians on the 911 Memorial concert

"The line was blurred between performers and audience."

On September 20, 2001, Kurt Masur led the NYPO in a performance of Brahms's German Requiem. Ten years later, Alan Gilbert chose to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the 911 attack with Mahler's 'Resurrection' Symphony.

In memoriam: Nikolaus Harnoncourt (1929-2016)

Obituary in the Gramophone magazine:
http://www.gramophone.co.uk/classical-music-news/nikolaus-harnoncourt-has-died

Hieronymous Bosch's triptych of the Last Judgment (Vienna)

Also from the 16th century ...

Michelangelo's Last Judgment at the Sistine Chapel

Before we save up enough for a Roman holiday, we can always take a virtual tour here:
http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/index_sistina_en.htm

A very moving rendition of Verdi's Requiem (Libera me) by Renée Fleming

This performance took place on 23 January, 2001 in London, three days after Beverly Peck Johnson, Ms. Fleming's long-time voice teacher at Juilliard, had passed away at the age of 96.

Fleming recalled her late teacher in this interview in 2014:

http://www.classicalmpr.org/story/2014/09/05/renee-fleming-on-the-importance-of-teachers-curiosity-and-hard-work-

Obituary of the late Ms Johnson in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/22/arts/beverley-peck-johnson-96-voice-teacher.html

Fascinating presentation of Liszt's Dante Symphony

Inferno : “Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate.” 

(Abandon all hope, you who entered here)

Marin Alsop presenting Verdi's Requiem on NPR

Premiere of Verdi's Requiem, conducted by the composer himself. (La scala archive)

http://www.npr.org/2011/06/04/136928271/verdis-requiem-an-opera-in-disguise

Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique with MTT

Keeping Score - an interactive learning resource created by the San Francisco Symphony

http://www.keepingscore.org/interactive/berlioz-symphony-fantastique

LSO Players on Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique

The timpanist is an alumnus of the School of Music.