What happens when you get a teenage piano whiz and the 24-year-old, multi-talented winner of NBC's The Sing-Off in a rehearsal room together? Beatboxed Bach, that's what — courtesy of our friends over at From the Top, who got 15-year-old pianist Kader Qian and the 23-year-old cellist/vocalist/YouTube star Kevin Olusola together for their own riff on the Goldberg Variations.
The Recycled Orchestra
Landfill Harmonic film teaser from Landfill Harmonic on Vimeo.
Landfill Harmonic is an upcoming feature-length documentary about a remarkable musical orchestra in Paraguay, where young musicians play instruments made from trash. For more information about the film, please visit facebook.com/landfillharmonicmovie.
Classical Music and the Movies
Dies Irae from Verdi’s Requiem
Hear Verdi’s Dies Irae in the movies Battle Royale and Water Drops on Burning Rocks.
A great “power” song, people all over the world, even those who dislike classical music, appreciate this work. Verdi’s Dies Irae is arguably the most well known and recognizable movement of the work. Although, many classical music lovers can tell you the name and composer of the piece, the great majority of the world cannot. Its heart pounding rhythms and driving melodies are truly awe inspiring.
Hear Verdi’s Dies Irae in the movies Battle Royale and Water Drops on Burning Rocks.
A great “power” song, people all over the world, even those who dislike classical music, appreciate this work. Verdi’s Dies Irae is arguably the most well known and recognizable movement of the work. Although, many classical music lovers can tell you the name and composer of the piece, the great majority of the world cannot. Its heart pounding rhythms and driving melodies are truly awe inspiring.
Do Orchestras Really Need Conductors?
 |
| Does This Guy Matter? Conductor Leonard Bernstein during rehearsal with the Cincinnati Symphony at Carnegie Hall in 1977. |
Have you ever wondered whether music conductors actually influence their orchestras?
They seem important. After all, they're standing in the middle of the stage and waving their hands. But the musicians all have scores before them that tell them what to play. If you took the conductor away, could the orchestra manage on its own?
A new study aims to answer this question. Yiannis Aloimonos, of the University of Maryland, and several colleagues recruited the help of orchestral players from Ferrara, Italy.
They installed a tiny infrared light at the tip of an (unnamed) conductor's baton. They also placed similar lights on the bows of the violinists in the orchestra. The scientists then surrounded the orchestra with infrared cameras.
When the conductor waved the baton, and the violinists moved their bows, the moving lights created patterns in space, which the cameras captured. Computers analyzed the infrared patterns as signals: Using mathematical techniques originally designed by Nobel Prize-winning economist Clive Granger, Aloimonos and his colleagues analyzed whether the movements of the conductor were linked to those of the violinists.
The scientists hypothesized that if the movement of the conductor could predict the movements of the violinists, then the conductor was clearly leading the players. But if the conductor's movements could not predict the movement of the violinists, then it was really the players who were in charge.
"You have a signal that is originating from the conductor, because he is moving his hands and his body," Aloimonos explained. "And then the players, they perceive that signal, and they create another signal by moving the bows of the violin appropriately. So you have some sort of sensorimotor conversation."
(The research study is part of a larger project where Aloimonos is trying to figure out if human movements share something in common with human language; he suspects both are not only governed by a grammar, but that both may be based on similar processes in the brain.)
Aloimonos said the study found that conductors were leading the violinists — the movement of the conductors predicted the movement of the violinists, not the other way around.
But the study found more: The scientists had two conductors lead the same orchestra. One was a veteran who exercised an iron grip over the violinists. The other was an amateur.
"What we found is the more the influence of the conductor to the players, the more aesthetic — aesthetically pleasing the music was overall," Aloimonos said.
Music experts who listened to the performance of the orchestra under the control of the two conductors found the version produced by the authoritarian conductor superior. Remember, these experts didn't know which version was being led by the veteran conductor and which by the amateur. All they heard was the music.
Kennedy Center's New Organ No Longer A Pipe Dream
It was almost spooky. Each night after 11 p.m., when nothing was stirring in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, two men would enter. One would sit at the organ, playing a key or series of keys, and the other would crawl around inside the organ pipes, 40 feet off the floor. The process went on for months.
It was the all but final phase of installing a new organ for the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. And on Nov. 27, the organ makes its formal debut.
Towering over the stage, the organ looks big, but you have no idea how big. There are some 5,000 pipes, ranging from five-eighths of an inch to 32 feet long, and weighing a total of 20 tons.
Why A New Organ?
The old Kennedy Center organ, to put it bluntly, was sick — so sick that at one performance a few years ago, they had to stop the concert to unstick a recalcitrant key.
Organ consultant Jeff Weiler was called in to examine the patient and concluded that the instrument was just not salvageable. Other consultants agreed.
The old organ was the "dying gasp" of a once-great company, Weiler explains. Right after it was delivered in 1972, the company, Aeolian-Skinner, went out of business. And when the organ began to falter, inspection showed that it had been jerry-built, using parts and tailings from other projects.
Two years ago, a donation from Kennedy Center Chairman David M. Rubenstein allowed the performing arts center to take the plunge and order a new organ, this time from Casavant Bros., near Montreal, a company that has been making organs since 1879.
Building And Installation
Just building the organ took two years. Then came the installation, a process that from beginning to end has taken more than three months.
The partially assembled instrument was delivered in August by a trio of 53-foot-long semitrailer trucks.
After the organ was assembled in the hall, the delicate process known as "tonal finishing" began.
Each night, while the hall was silent, between 11 p.m. and 8:30 a.m., Richard Marchand and Daniel Fortin, two Casavant technicians, worked away at perfecting the sound of the organ.
These nocturnal magicians say people tend to confuse the two functions they were carrying out — tuning and voicing. The tuning is relatively easy. It's the voicing that is really hard.
"You can sing with an ugly voice but in tune, but you still sound ugly," Marchand explains. "Voicing is to work on the quality of the tone you are projecting."
Tuning, it turns out, takes just a few days. But the voicing takes a couple of months.
Inside The Instrument
Marchand and Fortin, both of them musicians, work together — one sitting at the organ itself, the other climbing up and around inside the organ, using special tools to shift parts of the pipes, opening or closing an air hole here, shaving or moving a part of the pipe there.
Much of this work is done 40 feet in the air, with tiny crevices to use as footholds. The two men switch off roles from time to time. If you just stay at the organ, they say, it is too easy to fall asleep. No such problem crawling around the organ like a cat.
Organ consultant Jeff Weiler (left) and Casavant artistic director Jacquelin Rochette oversaw the tremendous task of building, installing and voicing the Kennedy Center's new organ.
Enlarge Kainaz Amaria/NPR
Organ consultant Jeff Weiler (left) and Casavant artistic director Jacquelin Rochette oversaw the tremendous task of building, installing and voicing the Kennedy Center's new organ.
"If you are afraid of the height, it is not a job for you," Marchand says.
The polished wood console of the organ — the part you see the musician play — is amazingly complex, too. It has four manual keyboards, 32 long wooden pedals and 104 stops. The stops look like porcelain knobs, and each one controls a set of 61 organ pipes, balancing the highs and lows, and the volume.
"Each stop has a role to play in this tonal structure, so we are building sonic architecture of the instrument," says Jacquelin Rochette, Casavant's artistic director.
A Delicate Balance
When we visited a few weeks ago, Rochette said some of the pipes were still "barely speaking," that the sound they emitted was "simply barking." By now, they are supposed to all be singing.
Organs are built to serve different functions. They are built for churches, for theaters, for academic institutions. But in a concert hall, the organ has to have tremendous sonic power so it can soar over a large orchestra and chorus. It is the stops that throttle up the power — hence the term "pulling out all the stops."
But for an orchestra, there is another balance to work out. The organ has to be able to play as if it were just another instrument in the orchestra, blending in so that the listener barely knows it is there.
What is so fascinating about watching the whole process unfold is the anthropomorphic way everyone talks about the instrument.
"The creation of an organ is very much like the birth of a child," says National Symphony Orchestra organist William Neil. "It's brand new, and it starts very humbly and very small and it grows, and as it matures and becomes a full-blown musical instrument, we have almost created here the adult."
A month ago, Neil said the organ was "not quite there yet" but was "on the way."
On Thursday night, the organ, now fully tuned and voiced into adulthood, was ready for its official, grown-up premiere performance.
BOOK SIGNING DECEMBER 1st 1-4 pm!
YOU ARE INVITED!
Dr. Woodruff will be signing his newly released
children’s fantasy novel
Dr. Fuddle and the Gold Baton
On Saturday December 1st from 1-4 p.m.
At the Phoenix and Dragon Bookstore
5531 Roswell Road, Atlanta GA 30342
(just inside 285)
$25 Hardback Collector’s Edition
$15 Soft Cover
For every book purchased Dr. Fuddle’s LLC will donate
a soft cover to a children’s charities or to child who cannot afford books
One-handed violinist transcends perceived limits to become rising star in classical music realm
 |
| ADRIAN ANANTAWAN
|
Adrian Anantawan is more than a rising star in the classical music world. He is a shining example of the power of perseverance in transcending perceived limits.
"I guess when you see a one-handed violinist play the Tchaikovsky violin concerto, you can always say that there's a story behind the notes," the musician said.
Anantawan was born without a right hand. The son of parents of Thai-Chinese descent living in Ontario, Anantawan nonetheless began taking music lessons when he was nine, with a rehabilitation center in his native Toronto helping to create an adaptive device for his violin.
These experiences transformed his life. His memories of life before this point were of being "marginalized" in school for being "slightly different," he said. But his world opened when he joined a chamber orchestra at age 12 and the focus became the sound he created, rather than how he looked, he has said.
Fast-forward eleven years and his musical exploration would bring him to a solo debut performance, playing Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. The performance was captured in a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation documentary, "Adrian Anantawan: The Story Behind the Notes."
Next came entrance to Philadelphia's prestigious Curtis Institute of Music for a bachelor's degree, and later to Yale University, where he received his master's degree in music in 2006.
Since then, his professional career has included performances at the Athens 2006 SummeOlympic Games and Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games, Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., and the Aspen Music Festival. He has performed extensively in Canada as a soloist with the Orchestras of Toronto, Nova Scotia, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Montreal, Edmonton and Vancouver.
Classical Music and the Movies
Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin
Almost anyone can recognize Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. Like, Orff's O Fortuna, Rhapsody in Blue is featured in many movies and television shows. Some consider it strictly jazz while others say it's classical, when in all actuality, it's a perfect combination of both. Here's an interesting fact, when Gershwin was commissioned to write the piece, he wrote it so speedily he didn't have time to compose the part for piano. At its first performance, Gershwin improvised the piano part. Later, it was finally composed.
Hear Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue in the movies Fantasia 2000 and Manhattan.
Almost anyone can recognize Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. Like, Orff's O Fortuna, Rhapsody in Blue is featured in many movies and television shows. Some consider it strictly jazz while others say it's classical, when in all actuality, it's a perfect combination of both. Here's an interesting fact, when Gershwin was commissioned to write the piece, he wrote it so speedily he didn't have time to compose the part for piano. At its first performance, Gershwin improvised the piano part. Later, it was finally composed.
Hear Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue in the movies Fantasia 2000 and Manhattan.
Mozart Gets Credit for Two “New” Musical Pieces
 |
Mike Vogl/European Pressphoto Agency
The scores attributed to Mozart, in his father’s handwriting.
|
The two musical fragments – formerly considered anonymous scribblings – are now believed to make up a full movement of a keyboard concerto written by Amadeus himself. The music remained among many pieces that were hand-written inside the practice book, 18 of which had already credited a precocious Wolfgang. Now, it seems that the two new works were indeed written by a young Mozart.
In a New York Times interview, Ulrich Leisinger – the Mozarteum research director responsible for the find – estimates that the pieces were written around 1763, when our beloved Wolfgang was just 7. He believes the concerto “was composed by someone with high ambitions but lacking the expertise to write out the music.”
 |
| A Mozart family portrait, about 1780-81: Wolfgang, center, with his sister Maria Anna (known as Nannerl), and father, Leopold. |
Dr. Fuddle's Atlanta Holiday Tree Lighting Update: 8 PM (not 9 PM)
ALL ARE INVITED
TO JOIN THE FESTIVITIES!
SATURDAY,
NOVEMBER 17, 2012, Downtown Atlanta, 17th Street
Musical
Performances from 12-8
LIGHT
THE HOLIDAY TREE AT 8 PM
WITH
DR. FUDDLE AND GOLD BATONS!
Dr. Warren
Woodruff, author of Dr. Fuddle and the Gold Baton
Will be signing
books all day in Dr. Fuddle’s Holiday Booth
$25 Hardback
Collector’s Edition/$15 Soft Cover
HOPE
TO SEE YOU THERE!
Dr. Fuddle's Top Ten Composers
7. Franz Liszt
(1811-1886), Hungarian romantic pianist and composer, most noted for being the first musical “superstar,” the greatest pianist of all time, creating some of the most demanding virtuoso piano music in the repertoire, such as the Sonata in b minor, the Mephisto Waltz, the Transcendental Etudes, Hungarian Rhapsodies; also noted for his development of the symphonic poem.
Listen to Nocturne in A flat Major No. 3 (Liebestraume - Dream of Love - Love Dreams) & Excerpts from Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C Sharp
(1811-1886), Hungarian romantic pianist and composer, most noted for being the first musical “superstar,” the greatest pianist of all time, creating some of the most demanding virtuoso piano music in the repertoire, such as the Sonata in b minor, the Mephisto Waltz, the Transcendental Etudes, Hungarian Rhapsodies; also noted for his development of the symphonic poem.
Listen to Nocturne in A flat Major No. 3 (Liebestraume - Dream of Love - Love Dreams) & Excerpts from Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C Sharp
An Interview With I Heart Book Reviews
Author Profile: Dr. Warren L. Woodruff
http://iheartbookreviews.com
Dr. Warren L. Woodruff holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Piano Performance and a Ph.D. in Musicology with a concentration in Piano Performance. He has a twenty-five year distinguished teaching career and is currently head of the Woodruff School of the Arts in historic Roswell, Georgia. His interests include attending great musical performances across the country, reading books of philosophy, history and science as well as fiction. His favorite pastimes, besides music and writing, are fitness and weight-training. To learn more, please visit www.drfuddle.com.
Q: Why did you decide to write this book?
A: Because I wanted to create a fun adventure in a setting very different from anything written before–something totally unique. As a classical musician, I wanted to create an alternate world for immortal composers, but one that any reader could relate to, like our own world, with its own challenges and imperfections.
Q: Do you have any secret writing tips you want to share?
A: Absolutely! Don’t be afraid to re-write several times, and from the first draft, READ EVERYTHING YOU WRITE OUT LOUD!
Q: Tell us a funny, quirky or unexpected story about you.
A: It’s definitely not funny, but unexpected. Since age 13 I’ve been afflicted with a very rare autoimmune inner ear disorder, very similar to what Beethoven suffered. I did all my classical piano training in high school, college, and graduate school with one functioning ear. Since 2000, the other ear became affected and I’ve had to rely on a hearing aid in order to teach and perform. In the past decade the quality of my hearing has deteriorated, but using Beethoven as my inspiration, I continue for the sake of leaving behind what I feel I was destined for–to expose and inspire a whole new generation to the joy and excellence of classical music.
Q: What books are on your nightstand right now?
A: The Ninth, Beethoven and the World in 1824, by Harvey Sachs. A Wish Can Change Your Life, by Gahl Sasson and Steve Weinstein. RareEarth by Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee. And of course, all seven Harry Potter books are proudly displayed on the shelf nearby
Q: What is you favorite quote?
A: As a writer, this is a no-brainer: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!”
Q: Who inspires you most?
A: Recent/Living: Stephen Hawking, award-winning scientist
Dead: Ludwig van Beethoven, immortal composer
http://iheartbookreviews.com
Dr. Warren L. Woodruff holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Piano Performance and a Ph.D. in Musicology with a concentration in Piano Performance. He has a twenty-five year distinguished teaching career and is currently head of the Woodruff School of the Arts in historic Roswell, Georgia. His interests include attending great musical performances across the country, reading books of philosophy, history and science as well as fiction. His favorite pastimes, besides music and writing, are fitness and weight-training. To learn more, please visit www.drfuddle.com.
Q: Why did you decide to write this book?
A: Because I wanted to create a fun adventure in a setting very different from anything written before–something totally unique. As a classical musician, I wanted to create an alternate world for immortal composers, but one that any reader could relate to, like our own world, with its own challenges and imperfections.
Q: Do you have any secret writing tips you want to share?
A: Absolutely! Don’t be afraid to re-write several times, and from the first draft, READ EVERYTHING YOU WRITE OUT LOUD!
Q: Tell us a funny, quirky or unexpected story about you.
A: It’s definitely not funny, but unexpected. Since age 13 I’ve been afflicted with a very rare autoimmune inner ear disorder, very similar to what Beethoven suffered. I did all my classical piano training in high school, college, and graduate school with one functioning ear. Since 2000, the other ear became affected and I’ve had to rely on a hearing aid in order to teach and perform. In the past decade the quality of my hearing has deteriorated, but using Beethoven as my inspiration, I continue for the sake of leaving behind what I feel I was destined for–to expose and inspire a whole new generation to the joy and excellence of classical music.
Q: What books are on your nightstand right now?
A: The Ninth, Beethoven and the World in 1824, by Harvey Sachs. A Wish Can Change Your Life, by Gahl Sasson and Steve Weinstein. RareEarth by Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee. And of course, all seven Harry Potter books are proudly displayed on the shelf nearby
Q: What is you favorite quote?
A: As a writer, this is a no-brainer: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!”
Q: Who inspires you most?
A: Recent/Living: Stephen Hawking, award-winning scientist
Dead: Ludwig van Beethoven, immortal composer
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Dr. Fuddle's Musical IQ Test 61
.
ANSWERS TO MUSICAL IQ TEST 60
b. Camille Saint-Saens
a. Gioachino Rossini
c. Robert Schumann
a. Theme
a. Franz Liszt
ANSWERS TO MUSICAL IQ TEST 60
b. Camille Saint-Saens
a. Gioachino Rossini
c. Robert Schumann
a. Theme
a. Franz Liszt
Simone Dinnerstein's Bach
There's something about Johann Sebastian Bach's music that nourishes musicians. Pianist Andras Schiff and cellist Yo-Yo Ma have said that they play Bach almost every day — like having breakfast, it seems essential for them. Pianists Glenn Gould, Angela Hewitt and Rosalyn Tureck (among others) have based entire careers on Bach.
Then there's Simone Dinnerstein. Like Gould, she was rocketed into the public consciousness by Bach. Five years ago, the Juilliard grad was virtually unknown. Then she financed her own recording of the Goldberg Variations. It got picked up by a prominent label, shot up the charts and a career was launched. Dinnerstein still includes Bach in nearly all of her recitals and has recorded his music on each of her four albums
Listen to Simon Dinnerstein Play Bach's Partita No. 1 in B-flat
Dr. Fuddle's Musical IQ Test 60
ANSWERS TO MUSICAL IQ TEST 59
a. Johann Sebastian Bach
c. Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
c. The harp
c. Medium loud
d. Frederick Chopin
c. Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
c. The harp
c. Medium loud
d. Frederick Chopin
Dr. Fuddle's Musical IQ Test 59
a. Jean Sibelius
b. One
d. One Hundred and Four (officially catalogued)
c. A wife of J.S. Bach’s, mother of many of his famous children
c. t lifts the dampers from the strings, leaving them to vibrate longer
Every Young Person Needs a Hero
I remember it as if it were yesterday.
I was eighteen years old, fresh and excited as I could be about majoring in piano in college. My early years of musical study were shaky due to family finances, but the first time I’d ever witnessed an advanced classical piano piece performed in the 8th grade--I knew I’d found my life calling. A future of rags or riches? I couldn’t have cared less. All I knew is that I’d found my true passion. My mother’s influence was enormous, since she’d played classical recordings since I’d been born.
When I first arrived on campus at my small private university and saw this attractive woman in her early seventies, I didn’t realize she soon would become my role model and hero. But the first time I heard her perform a full length recital, I was captivated, aghast in utter amazement and thrilled beyond words. I knew immediately it would be the honor of my lifetime to have her as my teacher. While I watched her perform Liszt’s spectacular Tarantella, I felt as though I’d entered a different dimension. Her hands moved so rapidly they blurred. And her fairly large body lifted, airborne at times, executing Liszt’s extreme pyrotechnic demands. Sometimes she landed on the bench with such force I wondered if either the bench or piano could survive. It was like watching a female Liszt. But then, she could play gently, singing the unforgettable melodies with her fingers like an angel.
As I began my studies with her, every second of our lessons grew more precious each week. Before long, she moved me last in her schedule, so that time was no longer a concern. I was like a sponge, soaking up every drop of instruction she so willingly gave. I remember once she even gave me a five hour lesson on one single piece, the Brahms Ballade in g minor. As she stomped around the room, pounded the piano with her baton, screaming “louder, more forceful!” or “back off now, more, make it lyrical,” I obeyed as though she was the Commander in Chief. But she was so much more than that, she was my Hero and my Idol. Following her musical leadership felt invigorating, like I’d just climbed the highest mountain!
For four years I followed her instructions precisely. She scolded me gently, and yet brutally, if I slacked off on any given week, but praised me grandly when I performed to her satisfaction. It was the greatest joy of my lifetime when I performed my senior recital with her and to this day, over 25 years later, I still have the card that she wrote to me after the recital, claiming she’d never been prouder of any student in her forty year career. I will treasure that note until the day I die.
I’ve always thought if I can have just a tenth of the impact this woman had on me to my own students, then I would feel I’d achieved more than I could ever have dreamed. And she was funny, too, once I got to know her personally, constantly performing absent-minded actions while rambling on about the wonders of Mozart and her days as an opera diva--something I never even knew until later in my studies with her.
When I created Dr. Fuddle in my novel Dr. Fuddle and the Gold Baton, I had this iconic woman in mind, a being filled with ironies, highly accomplished, yet funny, warm and loving; strict, but generous with praise on a job well done. I will never forget my Beloved Teacher and the memories of the day she passed away, many years ago, still brings tears to my eyes. May she ever live on in immortality through Dr. Fuddle.
Dr. Fuddle's Musical I Q Test 58
d. All of the above
c. Giacomo Puccini
b. The treble clef sign
b. Sergei Prokofiev
a. Always
Classical Music and the Movies
Sous le dôme épais (Flower Duet) from Lakme, by Delibes
Already well known, Delibes’s Flower Duet was made ever-increasingly popular by British Airway’s use of the work in an advertising campaign. This classic piece features a duet between a coloratura soprano and and a mezzo-soprano.
Hear Delibes’s Flower Duet in the movies The American President, Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, and Meet the Parents.
Already well known, Delibes’s Flower Duet was made ever-increasingly popular by British Airway’s use of the work in an advertising campaign. This classic piece features a duet between a coloratura soprano and and a mezzo-soprano.
Hear Delibes’s Flower Duet in the movies The American President, Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, and Meet the Parents.
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Dr. Fuddle's IQ Musical Test 57
a. Ralph Vaughan Williams
d. Franz Joseph Haydn
b. Christoph Willibald Gluck
b. Play at written pitch
c. The director of music for a church or royalty
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