In honor of International Women’s Day yesterday, I’ve compiled a list of some awesome women composers throughout the Romantic Era and early 20th century: Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (1805-1847) The oldest of four children (including brother Felix Mendelssohn), German pianist and composer Fanny Mendelssohn was extremely gifted and known for her musical abilities as a child. […]
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When I first heard “Fly”, I was amazed. I love the simplicity and the minimalism mixed with the electronics. I love the different moods and atmosphere the piece creates. I love how the work is piano-centric, yet the other layers work with the piano to paint the full picture. Background Ludovico Einaudi wrote “Fly” for […]
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Next week is Valentines Day, which means – of course – that there is no better way to celebrate love than by listening to classical music inspired by it. Please enjoy this playlist I have created of classical music inspired by love, and stay tuned for part 2! Kreisleriana (Op. 16) by Robert Schumann (1810-1856) Background […]
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Divenire means “to become”. And that’s exactly the story that this piece tells. This orchestral/piano work is the title track of Ludovico Einaudi‘s album Divenire, which he released in 2006: Einaudi’s Inspiration Einaudi says of Divenire on his website: “Divenire developed over a long period, beginning in 2002 when I was invited by the organisers of the festival […]
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Does anyone else love listening to film scores? Because I love listening to film scores. Film music is a wonderful way to escape reality because of the (literal) stories that go along with the music. Today I want to share one of my favorite film scores: The Imitation Game (2014). The movie is loosely based on […]
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A funeral march is a musical work with a slow, stately pulse – typically in a minor key and in 4/4 time – imitating a funeral procession. While the specific origins of the funeral march are unknown, books of military music suggest that the earliest funeral marches were slow, simple beats kept on a large […]
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How many pieces of music do you know that incorporate the actual sound of the sun into the work? Amelia Chain’s composition “Solstice” uses real recordings of our sun in the work (both as the inspiration and as a musical element). Chain was inspired to create the piece after talking to her daughter about the […]
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Picture this: it’s blistering hot, the middle of summer (1945). What do you do to stay cool? You think cool thoughts, of course. That’s what songwriters Bob Wells and Mel Tormé did, and that’s how The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire) was born. Tormé said of the event: “I saw a spiral pad on […]
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It’s almost December! I hope you are all enjoying this season of love, family, and twinkling lights. 🙂 I personally love the cold weather – especially the snow and the music! And because Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker” is a winter classic, that got me thinking. Has he written any other music inspired by winter? The answer is yes! So in […]
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Music is hard. Doing this for a career is hard. It’s not your usual 9-5 job that you can forget about at the end of the day. It’s something that permeates your life, the good and the bad, whether you want it to or not. It resonates with and pounds against your soul and it […]
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