Musings

How does one come up with a name for a new ensemble? There are composers, artists, Institutions, violin makers, myth-related names,, or sometimes a group is named after a member of the ensemble, but oddly, architects haven’t yet made the cut.

For composers, it is often easier to get a first performance of a new piece than a second.

It is a weird thing, writing down music, if you think about it.

A peek into the mind of a musician embarking upon her career.

Cynthia and I overlapped in New York in the 90s and she came to NCMF in the early years

Recently I’ve been chewing over the joy I take in this profession due to my love of music vs. the satisfaction I take in the process

Thank you so much for all your emails flagellating my beloved instrument.

Art expresses our deepest emotions. Ecstasy and grief, tranquility, bustle, anger, even frustration

When you were thirteen, what did you dream about doing when you grew up?

Life is like that sometimes – everything can be fine one minute and then suddenly go all topsy-turvy.

I enjoy when instruments employ artifice to imitate non-instruments:

Musicians strive to play expressively, whereas actors can communicate directly with expression.

I’m still coming down from the summer– Schoenberg, Shostakovich, “The Jury,” everything and everyone who turned up

By all accounts, I think I can report that summer 2023, our twenty-second season, was a smashing success.

It was as if I were witnessing the birth of a new composition in real time, not unlike a musical version of watching Harry Potter step out from behind the Cloak of Invisibility. 

For the final concert of Summer 2023 with the world premiere based on Rhina's poem you can pay what you want - one dollar, one hundred dollars.

Arnold Schoenberg’s Second String Quartet is widely considered to be a visionary work.

Shostakovich’s late quartets provide one of the most intimate confessionals of personal feelings ever vouchsafed by a composer in his music.

It is the anticipation of knowing what’s coming that might be classical music’s most sublime pleasure.

Since its inception, NCMF has been brought to life by volunteers. The time has come for more volunteers to help. Perhaps you?

In 1772, the rationalism of the Age of Enlightenment ran head-on into early romanticism.

If the concerto represents the individual against massed forces, unaccompanied works feel like an internalization of this struggle within an individual.

Thanks to an older kid in my orchestra back in 1982, I attended a chamber music camp in Vermont.

 "Looking back," Paul told me, “I would not have lived the same life without all this music because it is so important to me.”

If Mozart drove a car, what kind of car would he have? (One thinks about such things when sitting on a transcontinental flight.)