Music in Shakespeare's world

   The Boston Symphony Orchestra started the ambitious mini-festival focused on music inspired by William Shakespeare last Thursday night- through February 13th. It's dedicated to celebrating Shakespeare on the 400th anniversary of his death, and this program's focus is the great comedy "A Midsummer Night's Dream." 
   The first concert of this series begins with Weber’s classic Overture to “Oberon,” continues with Hans Werner Henze’s Eighth Symphony, and the last one is Mendelssohn’s much-loved Overture and Incidental Music for the same play, in a new stage adaptation directed by Bill Barclay. You will enjoy music, singers with the costumes and the staging on the stage. Only one night left.
The last chance to watch it is on Tuesday 2nd.

 Touch the mystery.

Striking Light, Striking Dark

https://www.icareifyoulisten.com/2016/01/striking-light-striking-dark-striking-words-zen-drum/

This was an article about the new album "Striking Light, Striking Dark: Striking Words to a Zen Drum. They discuss the collaboration of the music and poetry and go into the history of the instruments. It also includes details about the inspirations involved in the album's process, and the effect that it has had on its audience. The music is very mystical and transcending, and the texts are very clear, emphasizing the importance of the poetry. Some of the pieces did not seem to have a set form, but just sort of followed the words about nature and surroundings, etc.

There are someone saying classical music needs to address a calcification in it's culture and training apparatus. It relies on an academic culture that is old, very white, and generally very dismissive of change.
I think all above the opinions are reasonable for the future of the classical music, only if we insist on the great major and attract more people to classical music to stimulate the people’s enthusiasm, and we should be confident to the great future of classical music.


http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2014-07-22/future-classical-music

Different feeling via same music

The English folk singer Nick Drake.

CreditEstate of Keith Morris/Redferns, via Getty Images

What Makes Music Sad?

  
  When we hear some music of works,  you can feel sad or happy to express the composer's works. Music often not passed out pleasure, often  pass out your inner most authentic self. When I saw this article's first paragraph, The man in the picture is that the English folk singer. This picture give me the feeling that in addition to photographers, only one person sitting there very melancholy; vision tends to affect you hearing, listening to his work if you do not know the composer in the case of any background and did not see this picture, I believe there will be a different judge. 
  
  This article be honest, for me there is profound hard for me, but I think I understand the author wanted to say the problem that the audience often go through their own subjective sense of judgment, in fact  for the work I think this is good, because everyone do not feel the same even it's a same thing. 

 The idea and feeling is not the same, he can reflect the impact of the audience to have a lot of different way.

Reasons to be excited about the future of classical music

As Art''s changing and growing some musicians and funs from different country give us some opinions about why they're excited about the future of classical music.


Julie Amacher who is a program director for Classical MPR and Classical 24 said the reason to be very excited for the future of classical living art form is there have more and more new and varied audiences become accept and have passion to classical music. Now a lot of works of art spread through different media, even through movie and game.The spread of new and varied form and way can let more people come into contact with the classical music, especially the Teenager. Schools can through many ways to let students come into contact with the classical music. Students crossing the differences of language to share the universal language of classical music. Even if there is no chance or condition to reach the scene of the concert，they still pay attention to classical music Through tweets, Facebook posts, e-mails, and phone calls.This is especially important to the development of classical music in the future.

http://www.classicalmpr.org/story/2014/02/28/future-classical-music

Reference:
http://www.classicalmpr.org/story/2014/02/28/future-classical-mu

Galapagos in C

Interview with Michael Harrison

This was a really great read about Michael Harrison's new piece Galapagos in C. The piece combined music with architecture and artwork as it was performed right in the midst of the art museum at Rhode Island School of Design. The author of the article asked Harrison five questions dealing with the process of the collaboration, his background as an architecture teacher, the main elements of the piece, the combination of the architecture with the music and the direction he believes music will going towards after this collaboration. I was really interested to see how similar he believes music and architecture really are, and his idea of musicians and non-musicians being able to come together to create music.  He stated that there was a "tangible excitement in the air," which I feel probably came from how new and different this was for everyone involved. I think it will become important for "classical" music to continue to integrate with new elements to keep it fresh for the audience and involve more people in the music making.
There is also a video on the link which I would definitely recommend watching!

Celebrity Series of Boston features pianist Denis Kozhukhin

Pianist Denis Kozhukhin gave an outstanding Masterclass at Longy School of Music, Pickman hall to three piano students. The Masterclass was open to public and to students of Longy and other conservatories. The concert that took place later that day was organized by Celebrity Series. Those who did not get a chance to go to the concert should definitely check out it's review here

Stardust

I have never mourned anyone I have not actually "met"- until now. I realize how many beautiful memories I attach to Bowie - the man that "has" the world. There is no wonder that numerous activities are going to be held to honor this inspiring figure. As a Bowie's fan, I was inspired by the event, which is going to be hold on Jan. 29 by MIT music and theater arts department. 

"This is a way for the musical community of Boston to channel our grief and express our gratitude to bowie in a positive way," Ziporyn said in a statement. "The generosity of these top-notch musicians has been incredible, putting their time and talent toward this project on extremely short notice. It took less than a day to put an entire orchestra together, and that's a real testament, both to Bowie's impact and to the spirit of our community." 

This is a section to the news 'MIT honors Bowie with Glass symphonies' by Steve Smith. As a musician, I am so glad that this kind of meaningful activity could happen around the area where I live. There has a such powerful strength to made these talent musicians being together for doing one thing, and it is not only about cherish the memories of David Bowie but also about the musicians are using exactly the same way as Bowie, to contributed its own talents, feelings, and love to this world by using music. 

While principally a great pop icon, Bowie has never been just that. He had created a plenty of central and vital elements both in music and fashion for later musicians and artists to learn and enjoy with. Now, after he past, as the beneficiaries of the treasures he lefts, the musicians putting music in the context of the wider world - how we love, how we feel love, how we give the feedbacks of others' love. They excites us and inspired us, just as David Bowie did. 


For more information about the concert, please check here

My first article

Blah, Blah, Blah, this is my first article!Great link

Levine, "Highbrow / Lowbrow" Study Questions

Prologue

1.      Our current hierarchical system of cultural categories (highbrow, midbrow, lowbrow) seems fixed and immutable. What cultural work is done by a historian who maintains these categories?

2.     What error might ensue?

Chapter 2

1.      What was the status of opera in Walt Whitman’s New York?

2.     What does the prevalence of parodies and arrangements suggest about a popular familiarity with opera?

3.     How had the perception of opera changed by the end of the 19^th century?

4.    What was the relative status of bands and orchestras in the middle of the 19^th century?

5.     When Jenny Lind, and other eminent European soloists, toured mid-century America, whom did they appeal to? How did Adelina Patti’s experience differ?

6.    How were typical mid-century orchestra programs constructed?  How did sacralization affect this paradigm?

7.     How did Theodore Thomas manage to draw crowds for his New York concerts? How did his philosophy change when he went to Chicago?

8.    Since the founding in the 19^th century of our country’s major orchestras, what has remained their abiding fiscal reality? Who now employs the Chicago Symphony’s funding model? How has that funding model changed, if at all, over the last century?

9.    What are some of John Sullivan Dwight’s basic beliefs concerning the sacralization of art?

10.  Through art’s sacralization in the course of the late 19^th century, what were some of the changes wrought in the public’s perception of music? musicians? the concert experience?

11.    After a hundred years’ time, which of these perceptions have remained in place?

 Chapter 3

1.      Faced with industrialization and increasing cultural diversity, how did America’s cultural elites respond at the end of the 19^th century?

2.     How might one characterize 19^th-century audiences? To what extent did arbiters of culture attempt to modify audiences’ behavior, and succeed?

3.     What unintended consequences did more docile audiences create?

4.    To what ends did 19^th-century champions of culture maintain and disseminate pure culture?

5.     How did the Columbian Exposition’s Midway Plaisance and White City symbolize a growing gulf in American culture?

6.    How was American culture perceived to compare with European examples?

7.     What racial and cultural dimensions did the ideology of culture assume?

8.    How did Matthew Arnold contribute to our understanding of Culture?

9.    How did our invented notions of culture conflict with reality?

10.  As cultural categories codified, how were new forms of expressive culture characterized? With what results?

Epilogue

1.      What reactions have been provoked by the growth of cultural pluralism in the late 20^th century?

2.     What is the logical fallacy of the cultural categories that we embrace?