Some of my classical music friends are convinced that the art form died in the 1920s — and Schoenberg killed it. Contemporary music is uniformly academic, difficult to perform, and even harder to listen to. Airat Ichmouratov is but one of several contemporary composers who refute those stereotypes time and again. Ichmouratov is a true […]

In a way, I suppose, this release was the next logical step. Pianist Ronald Brautigam and the Kölner Akademie have already recorded the complete piano concertos of Mozart, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn. Presenting those of Carl Maria von Weber helps fill out that timeline. Von Weber was a younger contemporary of Ludwig van Beethoven, and his music […]

Principal Timpanist and Percussionist of the Charlottesville Symphony, I-Jen Fang, spoke with WTJU about how they got started, playing Bach pieces on marimba, and how social distancing has affected their life. For more on I-Jen Fang, visit:cvillesymphony.org/i-jen-fang For more on the Charlottesville Symphony, visit:cvillesymphony.org These interviews air as part of WTJU’s Classical Sunrise, weekday mornings […]

This is an important album. Its concept and execution make it so. Baritone Will Liverman has assembled a program of art songs by Black composers spanning over a hundred years. Each composer used the foundation of the classical art song. And each created something different that enriches the genre. Liverman commissioned Shawn E. Okpebholo’s “Two […]

Frank Kimbrough Although he has been gone now 39 years, and it has been much longer since he stopped writing, no composer of modern jazz has garnered more attention from his fellow musicians than Thelonious Monk, whose work is the subject of a continuous stream of tribute recordings. Groups as diverse as the Bobby Broom […]

New Jazz Adds – 2/23/2021 Joe Chambers – Samba de Maracatu (Blue Note): “On Samba de Maracatu, Chambers asserts himself more as a mallet player, particularly on the vibraphone.  Throughout the album, he uses the vibraphone as the lead melodic and improvisational voice that often converses with Merritt’s piano accompaniments and solos. While Samba de […]