Summer Serenade in Ocean Grove today

Last week i had the immense honor of performing with Nitzan Haroz, principal Trombonist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, at the Great Auditorium in Ocean Grove, NJ.  Tonight, i'll be returning to the Great Auditorium with two dear friends - Gary Schocker, flutist/composer (and a pianist to be taken very seriously!!), and Jacquelyn Familant, soprano.  We'll be giving a wonderfully varied program of Mozart, Rachmaninoff, Chopin, Hindemith and others, along with some very special featured works by Gary himself.

Seats are $13 each, and the performance begins at 7:30 pm.   Hope to see lots of you there tonight! 

For directions, check out the Google Map link below:

Thanks, Tom!

Pick up a copy of the Daily News in Philadelphia, read the front cover lead in article on the Cunningham Piano comeback on page 27 (wow, my hands never looked so good!), then follow the jump to page 30 to read a nice feature article by arts writer Tom Di Nardo.  Thanks also to Alejandro A. Alvarez for the beautiful pictures!

Ok, break time over...gotta get back to programming my next Visual Recital with Pure Data and GEM!

Visual Recital: "Bunraku" by Toshiro Mayuzumi

Click to Play

Killing Creativity

Just a quick post before i dash off to another recital with Gary Schocker in upstate New York (this after having just returned from a 2-week stint at the Rocky Ridge Music Festival in Estes Park, Colorado - more on that when i have a moment to breathe!).  A good friend of mine just sent me the link to this video from www.TED.com, and i can't help resonating with Sir Ken Robinson's contention that public schools tend to undermine and stifle creativity.  I would go further to say that music conservatories themselves (and the vast majority of us as private music educators - i'm throwing myself into this lot, btw!) are far more guilty of this than i think we care to admit.  I wonder how many times "urtext" trumps "unique"?  The concert "taboos" that get frowned on by artists to create a stifling environment for everyone involved? ("don't clap between movements"..."how dare you play from memory?  It's Chamber music!"..."no, that's not a dash - that's a dot.  Please pay more attention to the score!") And don't get me started on competitions...

Anywho, take a look at this if you dare.  It certainly helps that Sir Robinson has a wonderful sense of humor liberally sprinkled in with his talk!

(in case the embedded video doesn't pop up correctly, here's the direct link: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html )