Pianist Stephen Hough can’t stop talking about fire. He treats each aspect of his creative life as a furnace – with all of his many milieu fueling the fire. And when he visited Nashville to perform Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No. 1, he pointed directly to the repeated expression marking – “con fuoco” – in his […]
Classically Speaking: For Rhiannon Giddens, ‘There Is No Other’
Banjo. Lavta. Tamborello. Already a collection of instruments that don’t seem to go together at first glance. But Rhiannon Giddens wants you to know that they do. And as she says, “that’s the point of the whole thing.”
Classically Speaking: Cristina Spinei’s Music For Dance
Looped and layered rhythmic lines give Cristina Spinei’s music an amazing amount of motion. This is what has put her work in demand with choreographers.
Classically Speaking: The Tearjerkers
Since being used to commemorate the funerals of the likes of FDR, JFK and Albert Einstein, Samuel Barber’s famous, lush tearjerker Adagio for Strings has become an unofficial anthem of communal mourning. But the work has also elicited some very different emotions by appearing in some unexpected places, like an episode of Seinfeld or the […]
Classically Speaking: After Inspiration, Before Notation
For every piece of music that’s ever been notated there’s a moment, however brief, where the composer has the inspiration, but nothing is yet written down.
Classically Speaking: Hearing Beethoven
As a musicologist, Dr. Robin Wallace has devoted much of his career to studying Beethoven. Then his wife, Barbara, went deaf.
Classically Speaking: Hannibal Lokumbe And The Sacred Covenant Of Music
Hannibal Lokumbe is not caught up in what classical music “should” be. He composes for symphony orchestra, and improvises on the trumpet. He plays in concert halls, churches, and prisons.
Classically Speaking: Cheap Trills Live At PodX
Four friends got together and started a band? That’s so Nashville. The friends are a violinist, cellist, lute player, and countertenor? Yep. Still very Nashville.
Classically Speaking: Ben Folds Is The Rock Star Who Wrote A Concerto
When you’ve been playing in a rock band for your whole career the way Ben Folds has, getting in front of a huge symphony orchestra feels completely different.
Classically Speaking: Heart Is There
For Wu Fei, playing by heart doesn’t mean playing from memory. It means improvisation.