Listening to a symphony does not require expertise, only curiosity. This guide offers first-time audiences practical ways to engage with orchestral music, from following musical conversations to embracing emotion, attention, and discovery in the concert hall.
Classical music reveals itself through familiarity, not theory. Repeated listening trains the ear, deepens emotional connection, and builds understanding over time, proving that attentive return matters far more than technical knowledge.
A clear and practical guide to preparing for a music conservatory audition, covering repertoire choices, practice strategies, musicianship, and mental readiness, with insights into what audition panels truly listen for.
Haydn’s “Clock” Symphony blends wit and architectural mastery, turning a simple ticking rhythm into a meditation on time, Enlightenment order, and public listening in late eighteenth-century London.
Introducing children to classical music works best when it begins with curiosity rather than instruction. Through listening, stories, and live experiences, classical music can become a source of joy, imagination, and lasting attention.
In a world driven by speed and distraction, classical music continues to offer something rare: deep attention, meaningful silence, emotional privacy, and a relationship with time that rewards patience rather than urgency.
A postponed anniversary trip becomes a reflective journey through Vienna, tracing Beethoven’s restless life, his many homes, and the music written there, while walking the paths that inspired one of history’s greatest composers.
A reflective exploration of Christmas music that resists spectacle, tracing a quieter tradition of sacred listening where stillness, restraint, and inward attention reveal the season’s deeper meanings.
Classical music need not be intimidating. This guide shows how to build your first playlist by focusing on mood, flow and listening pleasure rather than history, helping newcomers explore with confidence and curiosity.
Each December, Bach and Handel return to concert halls and churches worldwide. This essay explores why their sacred music still defines Christmas, through theology, tradition, institutional practice and the listening habits of modern audiences.
Music begins before the first note. From vibrating air to emotional memory, hearing transforms physics into feeling, revealing why musicians, listeners, and technology shape sound as an active, deeply human experience of music perception itself.
There is something instantly engaging about a plucked note. It arrives clearly, speaks directly, and then disappears, leaving a small pocket of silence behind. In chamber music, where every sound is exposed, this kind of clarity can feel especially powerful.
Features
Classical music has evolved through four major periods, each with its own style, sound and artistic purpose. Understanding the Baroque, Classical, Romantic and Modern eras helps listeners recognise musical language and appreciate how composers shaped this rich tradition.
Music of India
On the first death anniversary of tabla maestro Zakir Hussain, the members of Shakti reunite to honour his legacy. Through memories, music and a shared history of innovation, they recount the extraordinary journey that shaped Indo-jazz fusion.
Interviews
Ahead of the India premiere of his acclaimed ballet, a conversation with choreographer Boris Eifman on his artistic practice and the journey it has taken across continents.
Know Your Composer
Travelling through Austria and Germany, I encountered three of Verdi’s middle-period operas—Rigoletto, Il Trovatore and La Traviata—works that reveal why his focus on individual passion, not grand politics, still grips audiences today worldwide across generations.
Interviews
Veteran conductor Noel Edison reflects on Timothy Corlis’s spiritually charged choral music, the making of ‘Immortality’, and why commissioning and recording contemporary Canadian composers remains central to his artistic mission.
Know Your Composer
Antonín Dvořák’s music blends lyrical melody, folk-inspired rhythms, and classical clarity. His symphonies, chamber works, and sacred music reveal a composer of remarkable warmth, craftsmanship, and national identity whose influence continues to resonate worldwide.
Music Education
From its early origins in the clavichord and harpsichord to the powerful modern concert grand, the piano’s evolution reflects changing musical tastes, technological innovation, and the expressive ambitions of composers and performers across centuries.
Music Education
A well chosen instrument case is more than a box. It protects wood from heat, shocks, and seasonal swings, supports your daily routine, and keeps your violin ready for rehearsal, travel, and the demands of orchestral life.
Music Education
Sight reading is a foundational skill that shapes every aspect of musicianship. It builds fluency, confidence, and versatility, helping musicians learn repertoire faster, perform more securely, and thrive in ensemble and professional settings.
Interviews
Pianist Vijay Venkatesh reflects on the spiritual discipline behind Mozart’s music, his new Naxos recordings, and how exploring the composer’s humanity has shaped his own search for purity of sound and artistic stillness.
Know Your Composer
Beethoven is often portrayed as the archetypal mad genius, tormented into brilliance by instability and suffering. But was he truly insane, or has Romantic mythology obscured the real story of resilience and discipline?
News
Trinity Laban and Shiv Nadar University unveil Satyam Kalon, a transformative global arts initiative uniting leading institutions across three continents to foster interdisciplinary creation, transcultural research and new creative languages rooted in the ideals of truth and beauty.