You're not just driving it, You're playing

An orchestra made entirely of car parts!



Niceness!

Dilettante Delight

If you haven't already treated yourself to it, surf on over check out "Dilettante" a remarkable new site for classical music lovers. Social networking. Webcasting.

You find it all here.

A great write up on the site can be found on the Times website here.

Check it out!

iPiano

You just knew that this was inevitable.

Unknown Rachmaninov

This is my must have CD for the month.

"First, it was recorded on Rachmaninov's own Steinway, housed at his Swiss villa; second, it contains two premiere recordings. The new works are a recently discovered Fugue in D minor (1891) and the piano version of the Suite for Orchestra in D minor (1891). These rarities are flanked by a handful of preludes and etudes-tableaux, plus the rip-roaring Second Sonata, Op.36."

Hats off to Denis Matuev.

Link

Steinway Legends

Speaking of Steinway.

Just short of buying the piano lover in your life a Steinway for Christmas, this will do very nicely:

"The Steinway Legends Grand Edition. The entire series is offered in a unique boxed set crafted in the shape of a Steinway Grand Piano. The box includes 10 2-disc sets each one featuring a separate artist; Vladimir Horowitz, Claudio Arrau, Maurizio Pollini, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Mitsuko Uchida, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Wilhelm Kempff, Emil Gilels, Martha Argerich, and Alfred Brendel, plus a deluxe booklet and a bonus CD."

Very nice indeed. link

Stephen Hough

"Acclaimed British pianist Stephen Hough (huff) is the 2008 winner of the Northwestern University School of Music's Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano Performance."

One of my all time favorie pianists. Link

Hannibal Lecter on Tour

File this one under unexpected.

"Oscar-winner Anthony Hopkins has unveiled plans to embark on a major world tour - as a concert pianist."

Details here. And if you can't make to one of the performances, don't worry there is apparently a CD in the works.

Hopkins has a CD, featuring his compositions for new film Slipstream, coming out and he has suddenly become a composer of note.
He adds, "I've been asked if I would write symphonic music for a symphony orchestra in Australia. Also I've been invited to Prague to write some music there."

link

Just generally invited to Prague? Hey I wanna go too......

Play It Forward

Hippies, minstrels, and motorists take note:

The Public Piano Peace Tour has kicked off, or more accurately rolled off, in the Morongo Basin. Public Piano Peace is not the name of an alternative rock band whose music defies description; however, music is intrinsically related to the process. It is also an athletic endeavor.

Linky

Dang! Why am I not having this kind of fun?!

Buying a Bosendorfer

How about Bosendorfer itself? Broadman pianos of Vienna now owns Bosendorfer, beating back by a whisker or two Japanese titan Yamaha.

Details here.

The New Instrument?

Maybe it's just the holidays looming ahead. I'm certainly no luddite. But I can't help but think this "instrument" basically boils down to another crappy VST with blinking lights.

I am speaking here of the new "Tenori-On" musical instrument from Yamaha.

Pictures and videos found here.

This would have been so cool in 1978.