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A group of sixth, seventh and eighth grade students realized there was no children's book about the composer Florence Price. So they wrote, illustrated and published their own. -
Renee Klahr/Think of the best songs of 2021 as a playlist catering to the most basic human urges. Within it, booties were called, muffins were buttered and bloody revenge was contemplated. It was quite a year.
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The symphony is far from a dead art form. Critic Donald Rosenberg says dozens and dozens of notable symphonies have been written in recent decades by composers eager to stretch themselves in unanticipated — but affecting — directions. -
The British magazine has trimmed down the number for awards being handed in its 90th annual prize ceremony. Is that good or bad for classical music?
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For 40 years, the Renaissance Street Singers have given free public performances of sacred music. But they insist that their mission is not religious in nature.
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Fridays are funnier with a classical cartoon at noon, from Deceptive Cadence.
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Watch the violinist play music of the spheres amid twinkling lights with jazz bassist Ben Allison. Hope ponders the cosmos, bringing together music and time, with works from different centuries.
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The middle of the 20th century was a golden age for American symphonic music. From William Grant Still's celebration of African-American culture to Marc Blitzstein's ode to aviation and the U.S. military, Harvard scholar Carol Oja explores a compellingly diverse group of American symphonies.
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Recently reissued Brahms and Mozart recordings by the Stuyvesant Quartet convey natural refinement, balance and a kind of inward grace. Fresh Air critic Lloyd Schwartz says they take their place among the most luminous chamber-music performances on record.
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Charles Ives biographer Jan Swafford traces the life of the New England insurance executive who forever transformed the American symphony. Ives's father, a Civil War bandmaster, said any harmony — however radical — was fine. "Nobody," Swafford writes, "had ever told a young composer that before."
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Violinist and conductor Joshua Bell is going to be joining Lance Bass and a Shark Tank judge in Atlantic City. (And one of the country's foremost classical music critics is a preliminary rounds judge.) Is there a classical music/beauty pageant axis we just didn't know about?
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Steinway Musical Instruments is on the auction block and a mystery bidder, rumored to be hedge fund manager John Paulson, appears to have the winning bid at $458 million. Ilya Marritz explains why the fairly healthy company is seeking a buyout in the first place.
