Seiji Ozawa is Asia's most successful conductor, a maestro in a quintessentially Western art form, and a die-hard Boston Red Sox fan. But the affable 74-year-old is used to crossing cultural boundaries.
The Polish city of Krakow played host to a unique collection of some of the world's leading classical musicians on Tuesday for a special performance to mark the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.
Not every classically trained musician has the gumption to interpret Michael Jackson on the violin. But German-born virtuoso David Garrett re-imagines "Smooth Criminal" with such fervor that you'd think Jackson had intended the song to be played by the instrument all along.
"No one can explain the power of music; there is no writer, no philosopher, no musician, and certainly no politician who can describe where the music stops, it is not possible" (Valery Gergiev, CNN 2008)
Very few people who attended the performance of the World Orchestra for Peace in Jerusalem this October would have noticed she was there. But there she was, a petite woman with long brown hair, sitting in the middle of the audience on "nervous autopilot."
The call doesn't come very often, but when it does the answer is invariably yes. This week, 91 of the world's finest musicians will clear their diaries and fly to Jerusalem for a rare performance of the World Orchestra for Peace.
Seiji Ozawa is Asia's most successful conductor, a maestro in a quintessentially Western art form, and a die-hard Boston Red Sox fan. But the affable 74-year-old is used to crossing cultural boundaries.
The Polish city of Krakow played host to a unique collection of some of the world's leading classical musicians on Tuesday for a special performance to mark the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.
Not every classically trained musician has the gumption to interpret Michael Jackson on the violin. But German-born virtuoso David Garrett re-imagines "Smooth Criminal" with such fervor that you'd think Jackson had intended the song to be played by the instrument all along.
"No one can explain the power of music; there is no writer, no philosopher, no musician, and certainly no politician who can describe where the music stops, it is not possible" (Valery Gergiev, CNN 2008)
Very few people who attended the performance of the World Orchestra for Peace in Jerusalem this October would have noticed she was there. But there she was, a petite woman with long brown hair, sitting in the middle of the audience on "nervous autopilot."
The call doesn't come very often, but when it does the answer is invariably yes. This week, 91 of the world's finest musicians will clear their diaries and fly to Jerusalem for a rare performance of the World Orchestra for Peace.
Since receiving the Ivor Novello award for best film theme for his work on Kenneth Branagh's "Henry V" in 1989, Patrick Doyle's compositions have been a sought after commodity in the film world.
Britain's rundown housing estates and deprived inner cities will be the setting for a new project that aims to use classical music to lift children out of the poverty trap.
At almost 8,500 feet in the Rockies, it can take a few breaths to walk up Central City's steep granite hills lined with Victorian homes, souvenir shops -- and an opera house that has served 19th-century gold miners as well as modern-day visitors.
Klaus Heymann may not know how to read music or play a musical instrument, but he has been attending classical concerts with his parents since he was 9 years old. Today he is best known as a successful entrepreneur, who is a classical music amateur.
"The Here and Now" might well be subtitled "Redeeming Rumi." As if to save us from the new-age squish of much contemporary rediscovery of the 13th-century Persian poet's work, Christopher Theofanidis' 33-minute sonic salon is an exhilarating setting bound for a Carnegie Hall debut April 5.
After the New York Philharmonic's triumphant debut in Pyongyang, I was invited for a cup of tea and conversation with North Korea's chief nuclear negotiator.
North Korean officials have invited rock guitarist Eric Clapton to play a concert in the Communist state, a diplomat at the country's embassy in London said Tuesday
The New York Philharmonic Orchestra is preparing to play a historic concert in North Korea on Tuesday -- but there is no word yet on whether leader Kim Jong Il will attend.
The New York Philharmonic Orchestra is preparing to play a historic concert in North Korea on Tuesday -- but no word yet on whether leader Kim Jong Il will attend.
Although the Abu Dhabi Music and Arts Festival is in its fifth year, a first-time liaison with New York-based IMG Artists has fast-tracked it onto a new plane of potential.
One of the most remarked-on difficulties of MBAs and other business education is that while students can be taught subjects like marketing, accounting and finance, one key aspect of commercial success -- creativity and innovation -- simply cannot be learned from a book.
Hundreds of people gathered Thursday night in Modena's main piazza to pay final respects to Luciano Pavarotti, whose vibrant high C's and ebullient showmanship made him the most beloved and celebrated tenor since Caruso.
Famed opera tenor Luciano Pavarotti, who appeared on stage with singers as varied as opera star Dame Joan Sutherland, U2's Bono and Liza Minnelli, died Thursday in Italy after suffering from pancreatic cancer, manager Terri Robson said in a statement. He was 71.
Luciano Pavarotti died Thursday at the age of 71 after suffering from pancreatic cancer. I-Report contributors shared their memories of the famed opera tenor. Here is a selection of those stories:
Famed tenor Luciano Pavarotti, who died on Thursday at the age of 71, was one of opera's most adaptable and ebullient performers, appearing on stage with singers as varied as Dame Joan Sutherland, U2's Bono and Liza Minnelli.
Like the unnerving and richly voiced instrument in the movie "The Red Violin," Tuesday's release of the premiere recording of John Corigliano's "Red Violin Concerto" has a winding tale behind it. And it convenes its own formidable cast of characters.
On a Saturday night in January, 400 concertgoers have assembled in a high school auditorium in Newburgh, N.Y. to hear two soloists perform with the Greater Newburgh Symphony Orchestra: teenage violinist Madalyn Parnas and her younger sister Cicely, a cellist.
You know something's up when two of the highest-profile and most honored American composers of serious choral music keep getting onto planes and heading to England to have their work recorded.
Tiempo Libre named their new CD "What You've Been Waiting For/Lo Que Esperabas." And this week, the guesswork is easy: The seven members of Tiempo Libre are waiting for their Grammy.
Lou Diamond Phillips pleaded no contest Thursday to a misdemeanor count of domestic battery and was sentenced to three years probation for an incident involving his live-in girlfriend.
75: The age of Abbey Road Studios in London where The Beatles and Pink Floyd recorded some of their seminal albums, breaking with the traditional recording techniques of the time. It was originally called EMI studios before changing its name in the 1970s.
Violinist Joshua Bell proves that art, like science, loves an "elegant" formula when Sony Classical releases his new Grammy-worthy CD on September 5: "Voice of the Violin."
Sometimes listening to the old masters is what you do while waiting for the recording labels to catch up with the new work you'd rather hear -- Morton Feldman, Steve Reich, John Corigliano, the racing majesty of a Jennifer Higdon "City Scape," the nerve-wracking beauty of a Roger Reynolds "Shattered Landscape."
A San Francisco antiques dealer dies under suspicious circumstances days before she is scheduled to lead a group of rich American tourists through Southeast Asia.
Oratorio, trained by Aidan O'Brien and ridden by Kieren Fallon, sprang a 12-1 surprise in the Eclipse Stakes at Sandown, overturning Epsom Derby winner Motivator, the 2-5 favorite.
Few cities get a chance to build a world-class opera house from scratch with a stage and acoustics that are second to none, yet Copenhagen is one of them.
PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND SARASOTA, FLORIDA ROANOKE, VIRGINIA SHEBOYGAN, WISCONSIN BOULDER, COLORADO LAS CRUCES, NEW MEXICO MEDFORD, OREGON SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE, MEXICO
--Brent Habig wasn't always an opera fan. His instrument of choice as a music student at Oberlin College was the piano. "I didn't get it," he says of opera's divas and drama. "It was so overblown, ...
Open a door at an American workplace today and you may find one of them: the old-old, defying life's clock. In a culture that all too often extols young workers at the expense of seasoned elders, t...
The ten-disk New York Philharmonic: The Historic Broadcasts, 1923 to 1987 (New York Philharmonic Special Editions, 800-557-8268) features the era's greatest conductors and soloists--and some truly ...
With dozens of recordings of Beethoven's string quartets already on the market, even the most ardent classical music fan has to wonder: Do we really need another collection of these works? Well, we...
Educational CD-ROMs can make learning a pleasure for both adults and older children. This one, Multimedia Beethoven: The Ninth Symphony (Voyager Co., $80), contains an overview of the most famous s...
The Kirov Ballet's . . . program ((includes)) a new ballet that will tell you where the Kirov men are. This week, 32 of them will be running up an aisle of the Metropolitan Opera House and yelling ...
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