Accelerando

For eight decades, the Cheltenham Music Festival has been a cornerstone of Britain’s classical music calendar, nestled in the heart of the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire. This storied festival has built its reputation not only by presenting world-class performances but also by championing new works from internationally renowned composers. The festival’s commitment to contemporary music w...

Ming, a Music and Philosophy student at the University of Pittsburgh, used our cello lesson time this week to videotape an interview for his “Music Culture and History” course. The class explores classical concerts in Pittsburgh and discusses performances around the world. The group attended Madama Butterfly at Pittsburgh’s Benedum Center, and much of this READ MORE The post S. 2...

Sonja Thoms is expanding the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra’s community presence through an innovative outreach strategy. Building on her decades of experience with the League of American Orchestras, Thoms recently established the WSO Community Choir, which will make its debut performing alongside the Symphony this season. Her plans include bringing the established Wheeling Youth Orchestra unde...

A twelve minute composition in seven movements has been dubbed “Very Little Night Music” and added to the catalogue of Mozart’s work, it is now KV 648. Scholars believe it was a work of Mozart’s youth, maybe as young as ten years old. There are very few chamber works from Mozart’s youth that survived, even READ MORE The post S. 2. 10. Germany: Scholars Authenticate A...

Live music is increasing in our post-covid world. Gen Z-ers are outpacing Millenials for the first time as ticket buyers. It’s an exciting time to be a professional musician, and Juan Jaramillo gives us a look at the Candlelight concerts featuring classical musicians. More in the show notes at https://accelerandocast.com/show_notes/ The post S. 2. 9. Live Music: Business is Good/Candlelight...

Beethoven became gravely ill in the Spring of 1825. When he recovered he continued writing his fifteenth String Quartet. This third movement gives us special insight into Beethoven’s belief that he dodged death for at least a few years. Sean Neukom finds Beethoven’s use of Renaissance and Baroque compositional styles another indication that Beethoven was expressing his mortality, that he knew he’s...

The Germans had the word for centuries. In Ancient times, they even thought a bug ground up could treat ear diseases. Today it simply means the music that gets stuck in your head More in the show notes at https://accelerandocast.com/show_notes/ The post S2. 7. Earworms (The Songs In Your Head) first appeared on Accelerando Podcast . This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with...

People often get a repulsion to sounds. Chalk, dentist drills, even bagpipes. Is this the same as Misophonia? What about ASMR: is it a subset of Misophonia? Today we find out. More in the show notes at https://accelerandocast.com/show_notes/ The post S2. 6. Misophonia, ASMR and Bagpipes first appeared on Accelerando Podcast . This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other s...

Over the course of your lifetime your auditory complex learns your preferences in terms of what you want to focus on in environment and music. We can make a lot of technical comparisons like the way AI learns our likes and dislikes: Music, Shopping, Foods, and more. Every day our ears filter sounds. And each READ MORE The post S2. 5. The Auditory Complex; How We Hear first appeared on Accelerando...

Perhaps the most distinctive element of music is the one that gives nuance to our daily lives. Our ears never really sleep. They interpret the world, keep us safe, and give ongoing descriptions as we make our way through the day. When you ask yourself what your favorite song or singer or type of music READ MORE The post S2. 4. Timbre and Texture first appeared on Accelerando Podcast . This is a pu...

The Camera can’t be equated with the Phonograph if you consider artists were capturing images and likenesses for centuries. The phonograph is more like the first canvas that can hold a performance or a moment in perpetuity. It came sixty years after the camera. It’s been here for one hundred years. Now the camera and the digital audio station are about on par. Music hasn’t caught up with art by an...

This week’s episode makes a wide arc from classical musicians and how they determine authenticity in an orchestral audition scenario, to how non musicians listen to music and determine which artists earn the badge of “authentic” in a variety of genres. More in the show notes at https://accelerandocast.com/show_notes/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscriber...

Its for sale: our time and attention. And it’s time to turn off the doomscroll and get back to real culture. More in the show notes at https://accelerandocast.com/show_notes/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit accelerandopodcast.substack.com

What better way to mark 100 episodes in the Accelerando Podcast than to feature Pittsburgh’s son Henry Mancini. I also talked to another great musician who hails from Aliquippa- George Perilli, when he performed for Chambersite’s Diamante Jazz Quartet this weekend. Joined by Kevin Clark, Lilly Abreu and Bob Insko, they played for the Roaring Twenties Garden Gala at the Northland Public Library. En...

The Italian word, sprezzatura, was invented in the sixteenth century by Castiglione, a writer. His book: The Book of the Courtier describes the perfect courtier, and uses the word to define and group the qualities that exemplify him. The word is popular today in fashion, and is useful to musicians who also strive to please their listeners. In today’s podcast we explore musicians that display these...

Daniel Kahnemann wrote about how we make decisions, and he won s Nobel Prize for his work on Behavioral Economics. With his passing last week we are thinking about his impact, and contribution to the world. When I began this podcast in April 2022 it was Kahneman who inspired this first episode. If his book could change the way Major Baseball Leagues choose their players, maybe Major Symphony Orche...

Composers often use a single repeated note in a piece of music, and it usually tends to get the attention of the audience in a particular manner. Sometimes it’s soft, other times loud, but it’s always persistent. Today we talk about some well known pieces that use the One Note More in the show notes at https://accelerandocast.com/show_notes/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss t...

It seems appropriate to post a podcast about the masterpieces Bach dedicated on the same date (March 24) a little over three hundred years ago, 1721 to be exact. They were first published in 1850, one hundred years after Bach’s death. The original scores were passed down haphazardly, we don’t know where they went after the Margrave of Brandenburg died. The pieces were not listed among his belongin...

Muzio Clementi was respected and praised by most of his contemporaries, especially Beethoven. Mozart paid respects by quoting or borrowing some of his themes, as composers did often in the classical era. Mozart may have been envious of Clementi’s technique and the two were put side by side on a Christman Eve’s concert type competition in Vienna. No winner was declared and it seems the purpose was...

The three violin makers that shaped the violin we know today lived in Cremona in the late seventeenth to the mid eighteenth century. Amati, Stradavari and Guarneri Del Gesu may have influenced each other and their influence reaches violin makers today. David L. Fulton collected twenty eight fine Cremonese instruments and published several documentaries about fine violins. The documentaries feature...

The seemingly easy and mundane task of turning another’s pages can be difficult at times or amusing. We look at a few comic skits where the page turner is the souce of jokes. We also take a deeper dive into those that take it seriously. Finally we see how technology assists in the effort, another DIY. More in the show notes at https://accelerandocast.com/show_notes/ This is a public episode. If yo...

The music of Luigi Boccherini is some of the most elegant and refined of the era that emerged out of the Baroque and eventually arrives at the Classical Era. Boccherini lived in this in-between time. He began writing polyphonic music and switched to homophonic writing after he met Sammartini. Both Sammartini and Boccherini were composers of the Galante Style. A few others of note were two of J.S.B...

Some people say we live in a gig economy. And its certainly true for musicians who gig, and have always gigged. But its different now than fifty years ago when industries hired locally and everything was run like a factory, because today you can choose to be infungible, one of a kind. There are so many tools at your fingertips that can help you market yourself, and create your own path. Today we t...

Opera is the art form that incorperates everything from complex stage sets to lighting and effects. In Italian “opera” means “work”. And Opera is a lot of work. It has drama, ballet, singing and instrumental music. Its “the works” alright. When supertitling came on the scene in the 1980’s, some Opera companies and fans that pushed back. You wonder: in an art form that embraces everything innovativ...

Environment has as much to do with our resolve and discipline as other factors like time management, finding good teachers, and being fortunate to have a good instrument. Meaning, we can have all four, and hopefully we can get good work done. Lots of books talk about preparation and planning. Those are all good, but if we can’t throw the switch and practice efficiently, we aren’t going to find suc...