By Laura Cortese “How do you do it? So much travel. Is it exciting? Is it exhausting? What a lucky job. I’d trade places in a second.” Music is my life. I spent 200+ days on the road last year.…
Malcolm Parson, Turtle Island Quartet’s new cellist, on the strength and range of his Montagnana-model instrument The easy-going and infinitely talented composer, cellist, and performer Malcolm Parson is keeping busy these days. It’s no wonder—he’s been recognized and renowned ever…
Sponsored by Luis and Clark 2016 marks the 100th birthday of the National Park Service. To join in the celebration, composers and performers, all affiliated with the Eastman School of Music, collaborated to create an inspirational tour of the United States National…
By Cristina Schreil Top video-game composers talk craft and how the young field has leveled up You might associate video games with tuning out the world or shirking your responsibilities—a possible reason your homework was late, for instance. But over…
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By Caeli Smith I love to write. In fact, I write all over my sheet music. Each line is crammed with as much information as I can fit. Here’s what a page from my Bach Sonatas and Partitas looks like:…
The 12th annual Banff International String Quartet Competition has come to its close, and the Rolston String Quartet—violinists Luri Lee and Jeffrey Dyrda, violist Hezekiah Leung, and cellist Jonathan Lo—took home the big prize. The ensemble (all Royal Conservatory alumni)…
By Megan Westberg 2016 has been a rather remarkable year for the Calidore String Quartet. After being awarded the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship (the first North American ensemble to receive this career grant), the first inaugural M-Prize (and its $100,000 purse),…
Violinist Kieran Ledwidge stopped by the Strings studio to perform with guitarist and singer-songwriter Christopher Paul Stelling. Watch the charismatic duo perform “Horse,” an original written by Stelling, with pure grit and conviction.
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By Inge Kjemtrup The cello has been the instrumental star of this year’s BBC Proms in London. Throughout the two-month festival, a pride of leading cellists has taken the stage at the Royal Albert Hall, demonstrating the beauty, power, and…
By Inge Kjemtrup The powerhouse violinist reclaims the international solo stage after a decade away Kyung Wha Chung is back in the spotlight, and very happy to be there, too. You could be forgiven for not knowing that the famous…
By Stephanie Powell The Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition has announced six finalists who will move forward to the final round. The semi-final round consisted of three parts: performing a piano trio, a Chinese work (Butterfly Lovers) and a…
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The genre-bending Turtle Island String Quartet stopped by the Strings studio for a Strings Session to premiere a work written by founding violinist David Balakrishnan. This the is the first work the four quartet members–violinists Alex Hargreaves and Balakrishnan; violist…
Very little that Stirling has accomplished can be called normal—to the delight of her millions of fans worldwide
By Pat Moran “Time was, a lone violin and a solitary banjo comprised a full band,” writes fiddler Darol Anger in the liner notes of Ron Cody’s The Cooper Sessions. As if to prove that point, the Wayfaring Strangers’ Matt…
From the Summer 2016 issue of Stage & Studio | BY ADAM PERLMUTTER Musicians have collaborated since the earliest musical instruments were made, some 40,000 years ago, but it’s only recently that they’ve been able to do so without ever…
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By Glenn P. Wood It could be argued that the golden-period violin cases were made by Stradivari but an equally powerful argument could be made for those created by W.E. Hill & Sons between the years 1887–95. These were the…
By Stephanie Powell Still in school and studying at the Aspen Music Festival years ago, the Chiara Quartet—violinists Rebecca Fischer and Julie Hye-Yung Yoon, violist Jonah Sirota, and cellist Gregory Beaver—experienced a seminal moment: a musical conversation between the Takacs…
By Cristina Schreil The string quartet has gone digital. Stanford University, with help from professor, musicologist, and violist Stephen Hinton and the acclaimed St. Lawrence String Quartet, launched its first free online course in classical music appreciation this spring. “Defining…
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