Sometimes, in a concerto, the orchestra gets all the good parts – and the role of the soloist is to accompany the orchestra by playing arpeggios and other embellishments while the other instruments belt out the heart-on-your-sleeve melody. One case in point is the second movement of Brahms’ violin concerto…
“Do you know that Beethoven firmly believed that people who listened well to his music would be better people, happier people? It’s the attitude that art has moral value. Yes, I think music has a special capacity to bring harmony to all nations. Good music has a truly positive effect…
I’m in the middle of a week almost full of Beethoven, and am enjoying it tremendously (: Two days ago Barry Cooper gave a talk in Manchester, which a friend, knowing my love for Beethoven’s music, very kindly invited me to attend. Dr Cooper showed us examples from Beethoven’s sketchbooks…
.. was what my new piano teacher said, when I told him that the most modern piano music that I’ve played was Poulenc’s. Oops.. I finally had my first piano lesson yesterday, after playing “unsupervised” twice at Performance Class. The feeling of performing on the piano (and not having to…
for R… Arts & Education ForumKeynote 3: Arts + Values = Global transformationBy Kang So-Young, CEO and founder of Awaken Group A friend of mine was supposed to attend the Arts and Education Forum at SOTA on the 5th and 6th of July, but because she had another work commitment,…
The mid-week concert featuring Lim Yan playing Beethoven’s third and fourth concertos accompanied by The Philharmonic Orchestra was quite incredible. Showing no signs of tiring, Yan tackled the two concertos with nimbleness and grace, bringing his own imagination into a performance that radiated with warmth and heartfelt tenderness, especially in…
The SotA (School of the Arts) concert hall was abuzz with activity last friday evening, where pianists, musicians, and fans of Beethoven gathered to watch local pianist Lim Yan perform the first and last piano concertos of Beethoven. This concert is the first part of a (rather ambitions!) three-concert series…
“I occasionally play works by contemporary composers and for two reasons. First to discourage the composer from writing any more and secondly to remind myself how much I appreciate Beethoven.” – Jascha Heifetz Many can boast of having played a Beethoven piano concerto, and but few can perform all five,…