I promise that I am not going to write a post today about how wonderful things used to be when I was young and how awful they are today.  You wouldn’t want to read that kind of BS and frankly, I’m not interested in writing about it either.What I do want to write...

A while ago I really enjoyed Les Intouchables, a charming French sidekick movie about an unlikely friendship that develops between a wealthy quadriplegic man and Dris, his African-born physical therapist. The theme music for the film is “September,” a song by the band...

Back when I was in conservatory, I heard lots of students and faculty members dismiss George Gershwin (1897-1938) on the grounds that, “He couldn’t even orchestrate his own compositions.”I was reminded of that opinion the other day when I was listening on my car radio...

A year ago I encouraged my readers in Chicago to reserve tickets early for an upcoming performance of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion that took place at the Harris Theater. Some Chicagoans did just that and told me afterwards that the performance, conducted by John Nelson,...

I went to see the New Jersey Devils play the Pittsburgh Penguins last week, and I have a piece of advice to offer you. If you are a musician or a music-lover who values your hearing or your sanity, you should never attend a professional hockey game.  The volume...

“Mode” can be defined as the arrangement of notes within a musical scale – the sequence of whole tones and half tones within an octave. In ancient times, both Plato and Aristotle believed that music that had been composed in different modes would cause listeners to...