Catalysts & Connections - Evan Tobias

It’s always interesting reading about the various ideas people have in order to increase the attendance of younger people going to classical music concerts. Justin Davidson, guest blogging on Alex Ross’s The Rest Is Noise, recently offered his perspective on some methods orchestras are trying out (towards the end of his post). I’m […]

Composer Belinda Reynolds, a member of the common sense composers collective, is doing the kind of work I was thinking about when I posted about contemporary music and music education a couple of weeks ago. Her recent article on Newmusicbox “Writing Music for Young Players” offers a refreshing and promising perspective on the creation of […]

While some of our students may already own an MP3 player, many more (who come from families that have enough money to buy them) will have one at the start of the new year. It might be a good time to discuss the importance of listening to music at a healthy volume level. Our students […]

With many school concerts taking place around this time of year the issue of what music should or should not be played is a concern of many music teachers, students, parents, administrators and community members. A recent article in the Boston Globe about holiday music at school concerts takes a neutral look at some of […]

Reading Frank Oteri’s recent piece “No Longer New” Music and Judith Lang Zaimont’s “Living American Woman” on newmusicbox reminded me not only of the many conversations I have had with colleagues about the need to include music being composed by living and recently living composers in our programs, but of the difficulty in […]

Track 1: An interesting perspective to reference the next time you’re having a discussion about jazz and hip hop music in your classroom
Track 2: A post on being able to download free performances of Bach by the BBC
Track 3: The free open source recording and audio editing software, Audacity, was recently upgraded and has many […]

People familiar with the culture of marching band and drum and bugle corps are used to lengthy discussions (and debates) entailing what music should and should not be played on the field. Some marching band directors have to worry about the music they are planning on playing being banned by their district, but it’s […]

Does anyone have any students playing the laptop in school music ensembles? It would be interesting to find out how many programs include the use of the laptop as instrument. With more and more musicians such as Ikue Mori using the laptop as their primary instrument it only makes sense to start […]