Based on his decades of experience conducting these works, Leonard Slatkin delves into eight of the most beloved orchestral pieces of the twentieth century and tackles problems conductors face before stepping onto the podium. These works are:
Nigel Kennedy changed the course of classical music in the late 1980s with his interpretation of Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’. He was revolutionary: in his performance and presentation; in his technique and his open-minded attitude. A natural boundary-pusher and musical adventurer, Nigel Kennedy blew minds
Experiencing Mahler surveys the symphonies and major song sets of Gustav Mahler, presenting them not just as artworks but as vivid and deeply felt journeys. Mahler took the symphony, perhaps the most tradition-bound genre in Western music, and opened it to the widest span of human experience. He introduced themes of love, nature, the chasmic depth ......
Reverence for J. S. Bach's music and its towering presence in our cultural memory have long affected how people hear his works. In his own time, however, Bach stood as just another figure among a number of composers, many of them more popular with the music-loving public.
Eschewing the great composer style of music ......
Great music arouses wonder: how did the composer create such an original work of art? What was the artist's inspiration, and how did that idea become a reality? Cultural products inevitably arise from a context, a submerged landscape that is often not easily accessible. To bring such things to light, studies of the creative process find their ......
Rediscovering the genius of the medieval composer, theologian, and visionary
A Renaissance woman long before the Renaissance, the visionary Hildegard of Bingen (10981179) corresponded with Europe's elite, founded and led a noted women's religious community, and wrote on topics ranging from theology to natural ......
How Race Women Transformed Chicago's Classical Music Scene
Between the world wars, Chicago Race women nurtured a local yet widely resonant Black classical music community entwined with Black civic life. Samantha Ege tells the stories of the Black women whose acumen and energy transformed Chicago's South Side into a wellspring of music making. Ege focuses on composers like Florence Price, Nora Holt, and ......
How Race Women Transformed Chicago's Classical Music Scene
Between the world wars, Chicago Race women nurtured a local yet widely resonant Black classical music community entwined with Black civic life. Samantha Ege tells the stories of the Black women whose acumen and energy transformed Chicago's South Side into a wellspring of music making. Ege focuses on composers like Florence Price, Nora Holt, and ......
William L. Dawson is recognized for his genre-defining choral spirituals and for his Negro Folk Symphony, a masterpiece enjoying a twenty-first-century renaissance. Gwynne Kuhner Brown's engaging and tirelessly researched biography reintroduces a musical leader whose legacy is more important today than ever. Born in 1899, Dawson studied at the ......