I’ve shared my thoughts many times about traditional Fourth of July classical programming. Sousa marches, Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” and — of course– Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” are pretty much the default. But there’s so much more. American composers have been writing music celebrating their heritage right from the beginning. Sometimes it was expressed simply […]
William Billings
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#ClassicsaDay #ClassicalChristmas Week 1
For the past four years, the #ClassicsaDay team has adopted Classical Christmas as its theme for December. And why not? We have a rich body of music related to the season dating back to the Middle Ages. A good deal of it is religious, but not all — many works are simply inspired by the […]
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#ClassicsaDay #ClassicalSchool Week 1
Traditionally, September is the back-to-school month. The Classics a Day team decided to mark the occasion. Classical School is the theme for September 2019. To participate, just post a piece of classical music that’s somehow related to education with the appropriate hashtags. What would count? Any classical work about school, or using themes from schools; […]
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#ClassicsaDay #ClassicalChristmas Week 1
This is the second year the #ClassicsaDay team went with a Classical Christmas theme. And that’s fine. If you think about it, composers have been writing works for the season as long as there’s been notation to preserve them. For my contributions, I tried to avoid the obvious choices. In the process, I discovered some […]
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#ClassicsaDay American Music – Week 3 Annotated List
#USclassics One of the ongoing Twitter hashtag groups I participate with is #ClassicsaDay. For July 2017, I used the theme #USclassics, and presented an entire month of American composers with examples of their music. Twitter only allows 140 characters, pretty much limiting my tweets to the composer’s name, the title of the work, links, and […]