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Karim Wasfi, age 36, arrives driving a white Range Rover and dressed in a blazer, vest and ascot. [...] Mr. Wasfi has held that post at the Iraq National Symphony Orchestra since 2004, through the darkest of times [...] "In the car, I also listen to the Saint-Saëns requiem and the Mozart requiem -- that's usually the right mood for Baghdad," says Mr. Wasfi, in his cultivated English, as the checkpoint militias gape incredulously and wave us on. He has lost count of the times he has just missed being caught in a bomb blast or a firefight. "I vary...

William Wolcott's violin studio is about the size of a large broom closet, yet it's often the site of amazing master classes. Virtuoso Itzhak Perlman has held court there. Pinchas Zukerman, Sarah Chang and other fabulous fiddlers also have squeezed into the room. They all fit because of a miraculous little invention: the Internet. "There's an incredible amount of classical music now on the Internet, and it's really helping me teach my students," said Wolcott, an instructor at the Omaha Conservatory of Music. "We can sign on to YouTube right here in my studio and watch the world's greatest violinists...

A half-century after meeting him, the Russian people still adore Van Cliburn. That was the message conveyed by Aleksandr S. Sokolov, the Russian minister of culture, and Yuri V. Ushakov, the Russian ambassador to the United States, during toasts at a black-tie dinner and musical tribute here on March 1. Sponsored by the Van Cliburn Foundation, the event commemorated the 50th anniversary of Mr. Cliburn’s victory in the first Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in Moscow in April 1958. Before nearly 1,000 guests in an elaborate 40,000-square-foot tent on the grounds of the Kimbell Art Museum, Mr. Sokolov read a message...

Fryderyk Chopin Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin, the Polish composer and pianist, was born on 1 March 1810, according to the statements of the artist himself and his family, but according to his baptismal certificate, which was written several weeks after his birth, the date was 22 February. His birthplace was the village of Zelazowa Wola near Sochaczew, in the region of Mazovia, which was part of the Duchy of Warsaw. The manor-house in Zelazowa Wola belonged to Count Skarbek, and Chopin's father, Mikolaj (Nicolas) Chopin, a Polonized Frenchman, was employed there as a tutor. He had been born in 1771...

PYONGYANG, North Korea - The New York Philharmonic arrived in North Korea on Monday on a historic trip as the most prominent American cultural institution to visit the nuclear-armed country, run by a regime that keeps its impoverished people among the world's most isolated. North Korea made unprecedented accommodations for the orchestra, allowing a delegation of nearly 300 people, including musicians, staff and journalists to fly into Pyongyang on a chartered plane for 48 hours. The Philharmonic's concert Tuesday will be broadcast live on North Korea's state-run TV and radio, unheard of in a country where all events are carefully...

The following link is to a Mozart DVD. Amazon Mozart DVD starring Hillary Clinton (above stars rating) Why is the DVD starring Hillary Clinton? Is Amazon mixed up or is this some kind of propaganda?

A soloist falls on his rare 18th Century violin. But how can it be repaired so it sounds the same? To drop a much-loved instrument is accident enough. But when it is a violin worth a cool million - and it's the tool of your trade as a virtuoso - it is unfortunate indeed. This is the fate that befell David Garrett after performing in London in December. The German musician slipped down a flight of stairs and landed on his violin case, badly cracking the fiddle inside - a 1772 violin made by Giovanni Guadagnini, who called himself...

LONDON (AP) -- Can his fractured fiddle - a million dollar Guadagnini - be fixed? It's too early to tell. David Garrett, a former model who has been called the David Beckham of the classical scene, said he tripped while carrying his 18th century violin as he was leaving London's Barbican Hall after a performance, smashing it to bits. "I had it over my shoulder in its case and I fell down a concrete flight of stairs backward," Garrett said Thursday. "When I opened the case, much of my G.B. Guadagnini had been crushed." Garrett said he bought the 1772...

Itzhak Perlman Undeniably the reigning virtuoso of the violin, Itzhak Perlman enjoys superstar status rarely afforded a classical musician. Beloved for his charm and humanity as well as his talent, he has come to be recognized by audiences all over the world who respond not only to his flawless technique, but to the irrepressible joy of making music which he communicates. His latest release from Sony Classical – Classic Perlman: Rhapsody – brings together the best of the violinist’s recent recordings for the label, including chamber and symphonic music as well as classic film themes. Born in Israel in...

World renowned Israeli pianist, conductor receives PA passport over weekend, asserts Palestinian citizenship. Rare new status could serve a model for peace between the two peoples, he says Reuters Published: 01.13.08, 16:17 / Israel Culture Daniel Barenboim, the world renowned Israeli pianist and conductor, has taken Palestinian citizenship and said he believed his rare new status could serve a model for peace between the two peoples. "It is a great honor to be offered a passport," he said late on Saturday after a Beethoven piano recital in Ramallah,the West Bank city where he has been active for some years in...

Antonin Dvorak His Life Dvorak was born in Nelahozeves near Prague (today the Czech Republic) where he spent most of his life. He studied music in Prague's only Organ School at the end of the 1850s, and slowly developed himself as an accomplished violinist and violist. Throughout the 1860s he played viola in the Bohemian Provisional Theater Orchestra. The need to supplement his income by teaching left Dvorák with limited free time, and in 1871 he gave up the orchestra in order to compose. He fell in love with one of his pupils and wrote a song cycle, Cypress...

Handel's Messiah I Handel's Messiah II Handel's Life and Times

A little night music seems too much for pushers, loiterers at two minimarts. At two minimarkets in Sacramento, Beethoven has been enlisted to do what no beat cop could do: drive off loiterers, panhandlers and drug dealers. For good. In two separate cases, the Sacramento Superior Court has told markets identified as trouble spots by police to play music known to discourage loitering – classical music. Reviews of the violin concertos – to be audible for 25 feet around the store, the orders say – are mixed at the Oak Park and Lawrence Park convenience stores. Police and city officials...

It was one of the more unusual moments on the stage of Avery Fisher Hall: North Korea’s highest-ranking diplomat in the United States stood next to the podium on Tuesday and welcomed the musicians of the New York Philharmonic to his country. “We are ready to receive you,” the official, Pak Gil Yon, told the players, who responded with mild applause. “I sincerely wish you a good performance and pleasant stay in Pyongyang.” Mr. Pak was also asked, provocatively, whether Mozart or Mr. Kim, who has been credited with directing movies and other creative accomplishments, was the greater opera composer....

If North Korea keeps its promises, potentially millions of its isolated, tightly controlled citizens are likely to hear their national anthem played on the radio by the New York Philharmonic. And then they will hear “The Star-Spangled Banner,” a quintessential American symbol, in a place long subjected to anti-American propaganda. Today the orchestra is to present details of its planned trip to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, in late February. So far it has declined to discuss repertory. But State Department officials, who have advised the orchestra as it was deciding whether to accept an invitation, have said the government...

Adding a cultural wrinkle to the diplomatic engagement between the United States and North Korea, the New York Philharmonic plans to visit Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, in February, taking the legacy of Beethoven, Bach and Bernstein to one of the world’s most isolated nations...

Ludwig van Beethoven His Life and Music Although his name is a household word, myths and misconceptions about the personality and life of Ludwig van Beethoven are prevalent today. Beethoven was not the neurotic genius-lunatic portrayed in some novels and movies in recent years. But he was instead an offspring of a truly dysfunctional family. It is true that his mother died during his late teenage years and that his father, an accomplished violinist and tenor singer, had become an intolerable and abusive alcoholic long before his wife's death. The circumstances of his family life may have had an...

Ludwig van Beethoven Special Broadcast Starting today, November 19th, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will be broadcasting, via the internet, a June, 2006 concert featuring Daniel Barenboim as pianist and conductor in his final appearance with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The concert includes Mozart's Masonic Funeral Music, K. 477, Beethoven's Choral Fantasy, Op. 80, and Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to hear the recording of Symphony No. 9 on Chicago's local station, WFMT. As you will hear, the applause was tremendous and the commentator went on to say that the ovation...

      2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 Christmas Music: Pontifical Musical Chorus of the Sistine Chapel Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music

Ludwig van Beethoven His Life Beethoven was born in Bonn in 1770. His father's harsh discipline and alcoholism made his childhood and adolescence difficult. At the age of 18, after his mother's death, Beethoven placed himself at the head of the family, taking responsibility for his two younger brothers, both of whom followed him when he later moved to Vienna, Austria. In Bonn, Beethoven's most important composition teacher was German composer Christian Gottlob Neefe, with whom he studied during the 1780s. Neefe used the music of German composer Johann Sebastian Bach as a cornerstone of instruction, and he later...