What is a Mode?

The commission for a new Clarinet Concerto from the great American composer Aaron Copland came from a rather unlikely source: Benny Goodman, the man known as the King of Swing. Goodman was one of the ...

1 Mai 202548min

Steve Reich, the great American contemporary composer, provided this program note about his work Different Trains: "The idea for the piece came from my childhood. When I was one year old my parents se...

17 Apr 202552min

Debussy and Ravel are often described as the prototypical musical impressionists. It is often said that the two composers are the closest equivalents to the artistic world of Monet, Renoir, Pisarro, D...

3 Apr 202552min

It's hard to overstate the depth of the connection between Dmitri Shostakovich and the legendary cellist Mstistlav Rostropovich. Shostakovich and Rostropovich were extremely close friends, and Shostak...

20 Mar 202550min

Magician, Swiss Watchmaker, Aloof, Elegant, Precise, Soulful, Childlike, Naive, Warm: these are all words that have been used to describe Maurice Ravel, a man of elegant contradictions. But perhaps th...

6 Mar 202559min

Amy Beach is a name that might not be familiar to you. She was born in 1867 and died in 1944, and her life was one of the most fascinating and varied in musical history. She was a child prodigy, becam...

6 Mar 20251h

Voici un épisode bonus spécial de Sticky Notes en français, en avant-première de mes concerts avec l'Orchestre National de Lille, présentant la 13e symphonie de Shostakovich. Si vous souhaitez écouter...

27 Feb 20251h 10min

Nationalism, patriotism, cultural identity, a sense of home; these are concepts and ideas whose popularity have ebbed and flowed throughout history. Nationalism has been seen as a natural expression o...

6 Feb 20251h 5min