Originally published on Mon February 4, 2013 3:43 pm
Yesterday, pianist Sara Davis Buechner published on the New York Times website a brave and moving account of her experiences as a transgendered person. "As David Buechner, born in the northwest suburbs of Baltimore in 1959," she writes, "I became an internationally known concert pianist. But from the time I was a child, I understood that I was meant to be Sara."
Afghanistan's youth orchestra performs in Kabul on Jan. 31. The orchestra is coming to the U.S. and will appear at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center.
Credit Musadeq Sadeq / AP
The Afghanistan National Institute of Music in Kabul trains both boys and girls. Here, students practice in January.
In Afghanistan, there was no sound of music when the Taliban ruled from 1996 to 2001. The Islamist militants destroyed music CDs and instruments and even jailed musicians.
Today, there are music schools and young Afghans playing in public. And, this weekend, 48 Afghan boys and girls are traveling to the U.S. to perform at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center.
Got an idea for a classical cartoon, or a reaction to this one? Leave your thoughts in the comments section.
Pablo Helguera is a New York-based artist working with sculpture, drawing, photography and performance. His new book isHelguera's Artunes. You can see more of his work at Artworld Salon and on his own site.
Originally published on Fri February 1, 2013 2:14 pm
When Jozef Van Wissem plays the lute, he doesn't sit. Instead, the New York-based Dutchman stands, looming over his low-hanging instrument like the "figure in black" character in "Black Sabbath" — that'd be the song "Black Sabbath," from the album Black Sabbath, by Black Sabbath — that scares the living bejeezus out of everyone.
Petra Haden had a problem when she was a child: "I remember watching Looney Tunes cartoons and having the music stuck in my head," the singer and violinist says.
Originally published on Mon January 28, 2013 5:21 pm
The Paris-based Quatuor Ebene — the "Ebony Quartet" — has risen fast in the musical world with two separate artistic identities. In recent years, audiences have gotten to know the "other" Ebenes — the sophisticated cover band that plays everything from "Miserlou" (the Pulp Fiction theme) to jazz to "Someday My Prince Will Come" (yes, the one from Disney's Snow White).
Miloš Karadaglić first studied guitar at the age of 8 in his home country of Montenegro, formerly part of Yugoslavia. At 14, Karadaglić was invited to play at a concert hall in Paris, and he later traveled to Italy to meet classical guitarist David Russell, who advised him to enroll at the Royal Academy of Music in London.
Got an idea for a classical cartoon, or a reaction to this one? Leave your thoughts in the comments section.
Pablo Helguera is a New York-based artist working with sculpture, drawing, photography and performance. His new book isHelguera's Artunes. You can see more of his work at Artworld Salon and on his own site.
Originally published on Thu January 24, 2013 12:54 pm
Researchers in London claim that listening to classical music makes for unsafe driving — in fact, that it caused more erratic driving than hip-hop, heavy metal or not listening to music at all.
