Reporting from Vienna — Beethoven Sightings
April
28th,
2014
Proud as I am to be a 36-year resident of Northern California, and proud as I am that all four of my children were born there, I myself grew in the ironically named “Garden State” of New Jersey. This bears mentioning (for the second time in two posts, no less) because one cannot urinate in…
Greetings from Vienna!
April
24th,
2014
Along with mass consumption of Viennese coffee, strudel, and schnitzel, our pilgrimages have begun. Today we visited he house in which Franz Schubert was born on January 31, 1797 at Nußdorfer Straße 54. To call the house “modest” is a bit of an understatement; at the time of Schubert’s birth its 16 apartments housed some…
Great Courses Spring Warehouse Clearance Sale
April
22nd,
2014
Over FOURTEEN of my courses on sale during The Great Courses Spring Warehouse Clearance. Take advantage of courses up to 70% Off Today! On Sale Courses include: The 30 Greatest Orchestral Works How to Listen to and Understand Opera Bach and the High Baroque Concert Masterworks Music of Richard Wagner Life and Operas of Verdi Beethoven's…
OraTV Day One Report
March
26th,
2014
First the good news. Today's recording session at Ora TV was a portrait in smooth. The crew is slick as snail slime on a bowling alley and incredibly easy to work with. I am working in front of a green screen (see below), which will allow my producer Jason Rovou (who was kind enough to…
The OraTV adventure begins
March
25th,
2014
Yesterday I headed off to the OraTV studios in Southern California to record 15 episodes of what I hope will be an ongoing show, "Conspiracies, Peccadilloes, and Dirty Little Secrets! Fun and Games with the Great Composers”. As the show's title rather breathlessly indicates, each episode focuses on a conspiracy, or a peccadillo, or a…
Invasive Species Update!
March
7th,
2014
Color me thrilled and grateful. Our Kickstarter campaign has raised its required 3k minimum, and will thus pay out on March 11, the day of the premiere for which the campaign was created. However, my dearest, darling, beneficent, generous-to-a-fault friends (was that treacly enough?), the cause of new American music is a good one, and…
Ordering The Great Courses Surveys
February
20th,
2014
I receive all sorts of (usually lovely) mail and email from all sorts of folks asking all sorts of questions, mostly about music but not infrequently about other things as well. You will – I’m sure – be relieved to hear that for now I will focus on the former, reserving my advice on dating,…
“Invasive Species” Kickstarter
February
17th,
2014
Today’s post offers an invitation, a request, and a screed. Invitation Come one; come all; please: I have a premiere coming up on March 11 at the First Congregational Church in Berkeley, California; 8 PM. The concert will take place under the auspices of Composers, Inc., an organization dedicated to the performance of new American…
Announcing A New Series for Ora TV — “Conspiracies, Peccadilloes, and Dirty Little Secrets! Fun and Games with the Great Composers”
February
3rd,
2014
I have been busy with a new project that I am now in the position to share with you! I have been writing a series of fifteen eight-minute episodes (1100-1150 words each) for Ora TV, an on-demand digital television network founded in 2012 by Carlos Slim (Forbes Magazine’s 2013 “richest man in the world”) and…
“The 23 Greatest Solo Piano Works” Series to be shown for FREE in Chatham, NJ
January
9th,
2014
Every now and then a friend sends along a link like this one, indicating that one of my The Teaching Company/Great Courses surveys is being publicly screened. According to the article, from the Chatham (New Jersey) Courier, my DVD series “The 23 Greatest Piano Solo Works” is being shown (free of charge) at the Senior…