Throwback Thursday
Two stellar pianists, cognoscenti may seldom hear under one roof, were brought together as part of the latest SOI season. Vastly different in their musicality, they share in common what ties together all great artistes. By Jehangir Batiwala The SOI Spring 2020 Season was unique, as audiences in Mumbai got
Music Education
Last summer I was in Quebec City, and one day as I happened along the Grand Allée Ouest I came upon an old church with the doors open and a Big Mama Thornton record wailing away at high volume. Intrigued, I went in for a closer look and discovered that
News
The Salzburg Festival’s directorate – President Helga Rabl-Stadler, Artistic Director Markus Hinterhäuser and Executive Director Lukas Crepaz – comments on initial announcements by Vice Chancellor Werner Kogler and Federal Minister Rudolf Anschober, according to which regulations for cultural events are to be gradually loosened in significant ways from June onwards. According
Interviews
Yann Ollivier: Dear Robert, dear Nicolas, I think we should begin at the beginning. Could you tell us when and how you met first? Robert Orledge: We met as a result of my complete revised edition of the piano works of Erik Satie for Salabert in Milan in 2014. Nicolas
News
The discussion regarding the death of opera has been ongoing for about 400 years. Since its birth in Italy at the turn of the seventeenth century, people have been speculating its demise. However, this art form continues to endure. Singers continue to sing, composers continue to write, and audiences continue
News
Grange Park Opera, Surrey, has discovered a major work by a major composer. Sir John Tavener (1944–2013), who was the one of the most acclaimed British composers of the post-war years, completed his final opera Krishna in 2005. For 14 years it has remained in manuscript form and has
News
In the absence of classroom lessons, the SOI Music Academy shifts gears and switches to online teaching, bringing together musicians and students under one virtual roof. “I cannot remember having seen such unusually prolonged, testing times for so many countries, including India, where I work, and France, where I have
Music Education
Daily I am reminded of the numerous things that should be taught in lessons to develop knowledgeable and proficient pianists. Certainly in a 30 or even 60-minute lesson, priorities must be established for what will be included and what will be left for another day. In my early years of
News
Weekly Webcasts of Past Carnegie Hall Performances to be Made Available Free of Charge Starting Each Friday To Audiences Worldwide! Carnegie Hall and medici.tv have announced the launch of a new weekly streaming project: Carnegie Hall Fridays, through which a selection of 11 webcasts of past performances from the
Features
Never has the somewhat cliché expression felt more apt than now. Since end of March, we have been grappling with a pandemic of, in our lifetime, unseen proportions. The measures put in place by governments over the world have of course also impacted culture, art and music. Concert halls are
Music Education
The Resident Conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of India, Mikel Toms, takes a moment out of rehearsals to consider the point of it all, as he asks and answers an important question: why do we rehearse at all? For years, I have been fascinated by the etymology of the word
Throwback Thursday
I think it fair to say my dad was something of a Wagner fan. He had books about him in German, underlined and marked, with his own remarks scrawled all over the pages, as my dad was wont to do to anything he read. And he had stacks of spools