Discovery Orchestra Chat 108 – The Land of 6th’s and Octaves
When composers want to add harmony to a melody, there are a number of ways they can do it. Learn more in this Discovery Orchestra Chat, featuring high-school musicians Katie…
Composers
Musical Discoveries of the Third Kind
You may recall the motion picture Close Encounters of the Third Kind that centers about a groundbreaking encounter with extraterrestrials. If groundbreaking classical music discoveries are what you seek, you…
Halloween Candy
Sometime before Halloween, The Discovery Orchestra will post a photo on Facebook that purports to have me in the picture. It does, in fact, have a nine-year-old George Marriner Maull…
“When You’re a Jet. . .”
“When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way / From your first cigarette to your last dyin’ day.” This lyric from West Side Story appeared in Jonathan Cott’s…
Right Size!
Some good friends of mine are fond of using the words ‘right size.’ And by this they are describing a state of mind in which we perceive our real place…
The ‘Art Song’ Challenge
The term ‘art song’ has always disturbed me a little bit. What song is not a work of art, and therefore not an ‘art song?’ Are ‘art songs’ in the…
Marvelous job, Maestro, as always! Thank you for doing such a splendid, insightful and careful deep-dive into the art and craftsmanship that Tchaikovsky, after much effort, put into creating this work. There really is no greater portrayal of young love in music than his Romeo and Juliet, and your thoughtfulness demonstrates it so admirably.