Inspiring Excitement and Passion about History and the Humanities
In 2011 I met Suzi Digby via Twitter. Having found out that she is a choral goddess and was in Los Angeles for a visiting professorship in choral conducting and arts leadership, I immediately asked if I could take her to coffee and meet her. I visited her in Queen’s College, Cambridge, and we talked…
One of the great debates in classical music right now is whether video game music should be included in the genre of classical, even when a symphony is playing it. I’ve long been a fan of the Oblivion soundtrack, and downloaded it before these kinds of scores were available all over youtube. ClassicFM’s website…
This year I am embarking on a new project as an entrepreneur who leads cultural tours to England, specializing in trips to listen to great choral services in cathedrals. My dear friend Jim and I are building a tour company, our first trip is scheduled for May 2016, and I’ve been working on the itinerary. What a fun…
This week the Old Music that I’ve been listening to has centered around Yuletide, specifically a hyperion recording of the Sixteen from 1987 called Christmas Music from Medieval and Renaissance Europe. As usual, Hyperion doesn’t work with Spotify (grrrr) so I also have been streaming Christmas with the Tallis Scholars. I also have a Pandora…
While browsing on youtube this weekend (I love that sentence because it implies long childfree days spent clicking from one interesting program to the next) I found this 2013 BBC documentary from David Starkey, the most fabulous British historian (and who puts on a fabulous show in the 1980’s Channel 4 Trial of Richard III…
This week The Cardinall’s Musick has seen some heavy rotation on my Spotify. They are a UK based ensemble that, like many early music groups, is scholarly in their recordings of 16th and 17th century music. They mostly record with Hyperion – a label I love – but sadly Hyperion isn’t on any of the…
I just finished another episode of my Renaissance English History Podcast (the most uncreatively named podcast ever!) (get it on itunes!) on Mary Tudor, and it got me thinking about church music during the five years that Mary reigned. She wasn’t famous for endowing any colleges, or really supporting scholars, but it could be said…
“music is so naturally united with us that we cannot be free from it even if we so desired” Boethius: De institutione musica Most serious musicians understand that music and math are inextricably linked. The early mathematician Pythagoras discovered many different ratios within musical harmonies (a perfect fifth, for example) by playing around with glasses of…
I’m a big fan of the Messiah. Every year I go to a sing-a-long, and since I’ve been in LA it’s been at the Disney Center. I used to play my parents’ old record of the complete recording (vinyl, before it became trendy) and would study to it. I can whistle all four parts of…
I’m sitting at home nursing a cold, the last of the three of us to catch it. Being sick with a kid is infinitely worse than being sick on your own. Because when the kid is awake, you’re awake. And not only are you awake, but you’re also keeping them company, entertaining them, feeding them,…