Modern composers

Women Composers Celebrated in Classical Piano Recital

Women Composers Celebrated in Classical Piano Recital

Sometimes I stop and ask myself, among the stacks of Chopin and Debussy and Bach and Beethoven (not to mention Scarlatti and Mussorgsky and Copland and Glass) I’ve been playing for most of my life, why every single one of the classical composers I’m familiar with is a man?

The Making of The Cohen Variations

The Making of The Cohen Variations

The song “Suzanne” by Leonard Cohen is not the usual fare for GRAND PIANO PASSION™. Yet I found myself admiring the song’s seductive, haunting quality when I researched this mini-documentary on the making of The Cohen Variations.

Simone Dinnerstein Plays The Cohen Variations

Simone Dinnerstein Plays The Cohen Variations

My knowledge of music from the 60s is limited, and I usually don’t have much patience for repetitive melodies, but you can count me as a new fan of Leonard Cohen and his most popular song, “Suzanne.”

Pulling Bach’s Music into 21st Century

Pulling Bach’s Music into 21st Century

I think the best definition of polyphony that I ever heard was from Arthur Jacobs, who defined it as “the simultaneous combination of two or more melodies to make musical sense.”