From 30 April to 9 May, Sydney hosted the ISCM World New Music Days Festival — the first time in the 88-year history of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) that the prestigious event will be held in the Southern Hemisphere. In putting together the program for this festival, more than 700 works from 52 countries were assessed, and […]

63 contestants were taking part in the 16th edition of the Queen Elisabeth International Competition in Brussels this year, an event dedicated to pianists. The contest, set up by the Belgian Queen Elisabeth in 1937, is one of the largest and most prestigious musical competitions in the world. The Second World War interrupted the traditional contest for more than 10 […]

Pianist Arcadi Volodos, called “one of the greatest pianists of our time” by the “Berliner Morgenpost,” has been celebrated as a wizard at the keyboard since his 1997 debut recording. His new CD, “Live in Vienna,” on SONY BMG EUROPE, features his virtuosity as a pianist and his skilled story narration and sense of timing. On March 1st 2009 Volodos […]

The Chopin Project announced the initial release of 20 exclusive new recordings, including many Chopin rarities via The Chopin Project iPhone App from the Apple iTunes Store. The Chopin Project App offers a growing discography of new studio recordings from the Chopin Project Listening Library. “Fans of Chopin will be thrilled with the quality of these performances and the recordings,” […]

ABRSM Presents a New Book Series for Students: Joining the Dots offers pianists lots of material to help build confidence and skill in sight-reading. The series brings together a range of activities to help students improve their sense of keyboard geography, helping them to read new music more quickly and easily. The five books cover the requirements for ABRSM’s sight-reading […]

Kemble pianos on the lookout for best amateur pianist A Chopin competition for amateur pianists has been launched on YouTube. Kemble Pianos launched the online contest at the start of April, inviting budding pianists to submit videos of themselves playing their favourite Chopin piece. Similar to last year’s YouTube Symphony Orchestra, which saw musicians from around the world submit audition […]

“Because of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano a man sat waiting Monday afternoon in the Newark airport instead of on a plane to Berlin. Thank you unpronounceable volcano. Sitting there, the man got a phone call. Yuja Wang had a sore arm, it seemed, and a doctor had ordered her to rest. The man didn’t wonder why they were telling him this. […]

Cristina Ortiz plays music by Mendelssohn, Brahms, Albéniz and Debussy in this live recording of a recital she gave during the Munich Klaviersommer. This video is freely provided by classicaltv.com: Your browser does not support iframes. Recital Program: Mendelssohn: Variations Serieuses, Op. 54 Brahms: Intermezzi Op. 118, No. 1 & 2 Albéniz: El Albaicín Cyril Scott: Lotusland Debussy: Deux Arabesques […]

Chopin’s four ballades are widely regarded as being among the most significant extended works for solo piano of the nineteenth century. In an illuminating discussion, Jim Samson combines history and analysis to provide a comprehensive picture of these popular piano works, investigating the social and musical background to Chopin’s music, evaluating the many printed editions of the ballades before considering […]

Passively listening to Mozart — or indeed any other music you enjoy — does not make you smarter. But more studies should be done to find out whether music lessons could raise your child’s IQ in the long term, concludes a report analysing all the scientific literature on music and intelligence, which was published last week by the German research […]

Volkswagen in Stockholm, Sweden, have created a site called thefuntheory.com. The site features several videos all dedicated to the idea that happiness is the easiest way to get people to change. The three videos that are up there so far show how to make people not fail when putting litter in a bin, how to get more people to take […]

After initial selection based DVD recordings of the compulsory repertoire, the jury chose 215 contestants to take part in further auditions in Warsaw. The group features 24 Poles, 23 Chinese representatives, one person from Hong Kong, five pianists representing Taipei, 22 from Russia and 20 from the USA. The most numerous group – 40 pianists – comes from Japan. The […]