Exactly six weeks ago, I sat in a concert and had one of the strongest realizations of recent times. On the program were clarinet quintets with the Gerhard Quartet and the clarinetist Victor de la Rosa, in a small but fine festival near Barcelona, where my parents live. Today, it's all about commitment.
In advance, I had learned that the Quartet rehearse for six days a week for four hours daily, and that they also practice a few hours per day individually, and have been doing this for eight years. That is a statement. Quartet playing is often referred to as "marriage of four", and not without reason.
Four years ago, Aneta decided that enough was enough. She needed to balance her architectural studies with some activity away from the computer, just working with her hands. She decided to take up ceramics as a hobby. Oh, to make something with her hands that she could finally look at, even touch! That made her feel good. This is how beautiful plates, cups and bowls came into existence, until today. She forms the fine ceramic containers and glazes them in her own oven at home. Now, she even sells them over the internet.
The bowls, plates and cups that Aneta sells are not perfect: the edge is not straight, the color is not even, the shape is not perfectly round ... And yet, many people want to buy her items. I'll come back to that later.
On the video you see her withdrawing her shoulders. The first bars of the d-minor piano concerto by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart are sounding. Pires, whose facial expressions embody different emotions at the same time - from shame over to desperation to decisive - rests her head on her arm at the piano....
Why Christian Tetzlaff's statements are important and what it all has to do with resonance.
This week, an interview with Christian Tetzlaff in Strings Magazine caused a little sensation on the internet.
Concert violinist Tetzlaff answers the question, what he would tell today's young generation...
The most beautiful conducting gesture in the world
He had the most beautiful conducting gesture in the world, and he was my choral conductor for five years. When you sing together on average 120 times a year, you accumulate quite a few experiences - one concert in particular stands out in my memory.
Plus a bonus lesson from Britney Spears. An encounter at Utrecht Early Music Festival.
I'm attending the last morning session of the masterclass at Utrecht Early Music Festival. For the last three days, harpsichordist Pierre Hantai has enveloped students and visitors alike in his own particular sound world. As we enter the last half hour of the class, the whole room listens in sweet rapture.
Suddenly, the door opens up, and in sweeps a tall blond man in a cream suit, with waving long hair, a white plastic bag in his hand. The room takes notice of the interruption. He looks self-consciously around the space, then spots a seat at the back of the room and sits down.
Recently, I went to Berliner Philharmonie to listen to Benjamin Zander and the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra on their European tournee.
The players were very young, displaying the energy and fervour characteristic to extraordinary youth orchestras. Their guest, Natalia Gutman with the Dvořák...
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