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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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In an art form notorious for its excesses, Verdi's Aida can take the bigger-is-better approach to nearly laughable extremes. But its grand "Triumphal March" is built on a simple foundation.
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The pomp is more than circumstantial in performances of a genial Norwegian march. A drumline from the home country executes precision maneuvers while a conductor in Russia sports most excellent facial hair.
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A song for a Spanish toreador from a French opera is a favorite of filmmakers. We sample a few unlikely uses of the martial melody — from a desert island to a food court to Sesame Street.
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Fridays are funnier with a classical cartoon at noon, from Deceptive Cadence. -
In Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, brass snarl and winds shriek like feral beasts in an opium-fueled dream of passion, murder and execution by guillotine.
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Hear one of the most exciting pieces of 21st-century music: a new retelling of Jesus' last days, from Latin American and Jewish perspectives, courtesy of composer Osvaldo Golijov and collaborators.
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Music Henry Purcell wrote for the funeral of Queen Mary II more than 400 years ago is still heard today. Composers on both sides of the Atlantic have been drawn to its simple power; the film A Clockwork Orange opens with a synthesizer version. Hear how Mary's mourners may have experienced it.
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Hear a top French chamber orchestra bring passionate life to operatic works by Vivaldi, Handel and the little-heard Nicola Antonio Porpora — a composer who was once Handel's rival.
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We can thank Alfred Hitchcock for giving new life to Charles Gounod's quirky little march about dueling puppets, funeral processions and a few refreshing cocktails.
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Van Cliburn competition winners remember the great pianist, who died last month at age 78. See silver medalist Joyce Yang play for Cliburn — and his unforgettably moving response.
