Italics are mine

Khachaturian violin concerto

Someone named fur bru posted this recording of David Oistrakh playing the Khachaturian violin concerto with the Moscow Symphony Orchestra on YouTube. (Oistrakh premiered the concerto in Moscow in September 1940, but I'm not sure when the recording was made.) This has quickly become one of my all-time favorite music pieces. Unfortunately, this specific recording is not currently available on Amazon, even as a download. I'll make sure to buy it when it is. It absolutely shows why David Oistrakh is considered one of the greatest violinists of the 20th century.

Music Mavericks (Not)

Alex Ross wrote in the New Yorker in May about maestro James Levine's return to the pulpit after a two-year hiatus for health reasons ("Return Engagement", June 10 & 17, 2013). There is no doubt that the concert the Met Orchestra gave under his leadership - to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Wagner's birth, no less - was a significant moment of the season, but of course Levine's return was made all the more moving by the daunting medical issues he has faced over the past few years. I remember attending a Met performance where a singer walked him to the edge of the stage for the curtain calls, and he could so barely shuffle his feet that I thought he had not much longer to live. He has made extraordinary contributions to the Met in his forty years there, and I'm very glad he made it through these trying times and appears to be conducting just as well as before.

In the article, Ross raises the question of whether Levine should resume the full duties of a music director, even if he physically can. He points out that Levine has not, in his opinion, shown himself very open to new work, "nor has he led the way in cultivating imaginative theatrical visions." While Opera Philadelphia produced recent Pulitzer-Prize winner Silent Night this past season (about German and French troops in World War 1 who declare a momentary truce for Christmas 1914) and will show Ainadamar (a work not quite ten years old, about the execution of poet Federico Garcia Lorca during the Spanish Civil War) this coming one, the Met doesn't strike by its willingness to depict opera as a vibrant, living art form - instead of a dusty one dominated again and again works by Verdi or Mozart or other long-dead composers, as good as they are.

This echoes what Ross had written back in March in "Illuminated", a New Yorker article about "George Benjamin's long-awaited masterpiece", where he pointed out, among other things, that music amateurs now saw that sort of vanguard, modern operas at Covent Garden in London (which had lowered ticked prices for the run of Benjamin's piece, attracting more diverse crowds, and has announced commissions from a long list of composers) but not in New York. "Against all odds, London's plush old house has established itself as a global center for new opera. In comparison, the Met, for all its technological pizzazz, looks archaic." (I actually loved the Met's recent tech-savvy production of Wagner's Ring, but I agree that it isn't pulling its weight when it comes to supporting current composers, who may be this century's Verdi or Wagner, and fostering new works (the new Traviata? or Barber of Seville?). Thus it has lost an important opportunity to get younger people and people of more modest means than the average Met opera-goer excited about opera.)

In the "Return Engagement" piece, Ross puts in sharp contrast Levine's Met and Alan Gilbert's New York Philharmonic. While the most fervent music mavericks remain staunchly on the West Coast (San Francisco Symphony with Michael Tilson Thomas comes to mind), thanks to Gilbert "the New York Philharmonic has lost its veneer of dull prestige." In April it capped an All-American program with Ives's fourth symphony, to great acclaim, and next season its new-music series Contact! will expand to four episodes a year. "At the moment," Ross writes mercilessly (for Levine) but perhaps not inaccurately, "Gilbert is the music director the city needs." 

Wagner in Baltimore

(Picture credit: Didi Balle didiballe.com) This is another of those posts I meant to write before I left for Paris but wasn't able to, in the rush to finish the semester and get everything ready in time. As a matter of fact, I couldn't go - I had to be in New York that same evening - but I thought Marin Alsop, the music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, had yet again treaded new ground in explaining music to a wide audience when she commissionned "A Composer Fit for a King: Wagner and King Ludwig II" from Didi Balle, who had previously collaborated with Alsop three times on symphonic shows.

From the program: "The symphonic play is a seamless blend of music and theater dramatizing the backstage story behind the making of the Ring Cycle." It was performed mid-April at the Meyerhoff in Baltimore and at the Strathmore in Bethesda, one night each. I find the mix of multiple media (theater and opera, in this case) particularly useful in drawing in audiences which may be reluctant to sit through, say, four hours of Götterdämmerung as their first introduction to Wagner.

I was also pleased to also recognize, in the list of cast members, the name of Pomme Koch (playing King Ludwig II, no less), a young local - meaning DC area - actor I'd seen in February in Henry V at the Folger in a role he had understudied for and had been thrust into due to the sudden illness of another performer. He'd done remarkably well, not only under the circumstances, but as a matter of fact it was completely unnoticeable that he didn't usually play that role. I always enjoy watching young actors getting the success they deserve.

My big regret is not to have seen another of Dalle's symphonic plays, about my other big (musical!) love besides Richard Wagner: Dmitri Shostakovich. Shostakovich: Notes for Stalin premiered at Verizon Hall in Philadelphia with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Yannick Nezet-Seguin, and for some reason I never heard about it. (I'm very good at not paying attention to anything besides work when it's the middle of the semester and I have tests and assignments to prepare.) Hopefully these shows will be recorded some day and I'll get to see them then.

Shostakovich Quartets at CMS

 I had the very good fortune to attend two of the four concerts the Jerusalem Quartet gave in New York's Alice Tully Hall last week, where it played the full fifteen quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich as one of the key events of the 2012-2013 season at the Chamber Music Society.

It's hard to put in words what an outstanding job Wu Han and David Finckel (cellist of my favorite string quartet, the Emerson, for a few more months), the wife-and-husband team at the artistic helm of CMS, as well as their whole team have done in making such a high-quality event possible:

• a dedicated multi-media website with biographical information on Shostakovich, a timeline to put the concerts in context and, most importantly, a vast repository of audio notes, audio clips, lecture videos, performance video and - my favorite - a "follow the score" tool where the viewer can follow along with the musical score to the first movement of the 8th quartet.
• lectures by on Shostakovich's life and works, as well as more targeted lectures focused on the program of each concert, by the excellent Michael Parloff. (The 2 hour-lecture on Shostakovich's life and works was streamed online for free.)

Watch the Emerson String Quartet play the 3rd movement of String Quartet No 3 below (left), and Michael Parloff's lecture on the life and works of Shostakovich (right). You can watch the other Parloff lectures on YouTube in their entirety.

I attended the first and third concerts, where the Jerusalem Quartet presented Quartets No 1, 5, 6, 12 and 3, 7, 13, 14, respectively. The Jerusalem Quartet got standing ovations both nights I was there, and I have to say they were amply deserved. Here is a video of them playing Quartet No 3, courtesy of Vimeo. A video of them playing Quartet No 8 is also available from the website.

I had felt compelled to come because of Shostakovich's personal story and the difficult line he had to toe in the middle of Stalinism to be able to compose and have his music heard while living in times of terrible dictatorship. (This is a topic I'm particularly interested in because of my forthcoming novella and the general theme of my fiction writing.)

 I bought the box set of the Emerson String Quartet playing the full Shostakovich quartets, and will definitely get the recording by the Jerusalem Quartet, which covers Quartets 1, 4, 6, 8, 9 and 11. I've listened to the box set (5 CDs) in its entirety already, and the quartets are simply spell-binding. There is none of the dissonance you hear sometimes in the symphonies of twentieth-century composers - frankly I like Shostakovich's quartets even more than I like his symphonies, but I have to admit I hadn't been as spellbound when I'd bought this after reading Music for Silenced Voices by Wendy Lesser. So the talent of the Emerson String Quartet (in recordings) and the Jerusalem Quartet (in live performances) probably played an important role in my discovering new favorite works.

Here are some other albums and books I own about Shostakovich. (I'll spare you my detailed opinion on each, but feel free to leave a comment if you're interested in hearing more!)

 

I also have the CDs on the life and music of Shostakovich by the always informative Robert Greenberg of the Teaching Company. You can tell that when I'm passionate about something (in this case, the way an artist hung on to his ability to create masterpieces in spite of harrowing circumstances), I don't do things halfway.

Finally, I also got the poster of the cycle at the Chamber Music Society, and I can't find a good picture file to show you what it looks like, but it is depicted on the first page of this PDF document. Nice, uh?

 If you've read that far, you probably have an interest in Shostakovich too, and I highly recommend the Emerson & Jerusalem recordings of the quartets. I haven't heard the Jerusalem recording itself, but if it's half as good as the live performances, it'll be worth every penny. And of course, please consider subscribing to the Chamber Music Society's 2013-2014 season - it is easily the best chamber music program in the nation!

 

"Norma" at Kennedy Center

On Saturday I had the good fortune to attend the premiere of the opera Norma in a new production by the Washington National Opera (WNO) at the Kennedy Center. I’d never attended an opera in DC before (I see enough operas in NYC and Philly already) and had very low expectations given the pictures I’d seen of a recent production of Cosi fan tutte, which showed sets and costumes worthy of a soap opera – and not a very successful one at that.

 I’d never seen Norma before either, but I’d enjoyed watching Angela Meade in the DVD of The Audition, so I figured that, in the worst-case scenario, at least I’d get to watch and hear a rising star of the operatic world in live performance. Well, ladies and gentlemen, this Norma is a home run, and if you care at all about opera and are able to get to DC before March 24, you really want to buy yourself a ticket.

The production is quite simply amazing. The voices are superb – not only Angela Meade’s, although she does give a show-stopping performance, but also those of Dolora Zajick as Amalgisa and Rafael Davila as Pollione. You’ll find yourself leaning forward to the edge of your seat while Meade mesmerizes you with her singing and it dawns on you that you’re witnessing something truly extraordinary. (Yes, she got plenty of “brava” when she was done.)

The melodic line is very enjoyable – this is bel canto, after all – and the stage set as well as the costumes are gorgeous without being distracting, with spare lines and subdued colors throughout. You can admire the excellent color scheme in white, brown and grey in these photographs posted on the Kennedy Center's website. The stage never feels overcrowded even when it’s filled with extras, and the whole space is very well-used allowing both sides of the audience to feel close to the action, in a modern production that sets a standard worthy of the best opera houses. This is how modern productions should be done. What a treat.

You can listen to Meade sing Norma in recital in the YouTube video below, uploaded by GiordaniFoundation.

And yes, it also means that I believe the WaPo review (also see this post) misses the mark, to put it nicely. Interestingly my neighbor on the evening of the performance had mentioned this reviewer as someone who sometimes writes very puzzling reviews. Thankfully, the commenter named “alexbodenham” summarizes my thoughts perfectly, both about the Norma production and about my views on such critics. Oh well. I had a wonderful, memorable evening at Kennedy Center and the WaPo reviewer didn't. Guess which shoes I prefer being in?

As an amusing side note, when I attended a concert by the National Symphony Orchestra the big line outside the building afterward was for the shuttle back to the Foggy Bottom metro station, but after the opera the long line was in front of the taxi stand (there also seemed to be quite a few black towncars idling nearby) - on Saturday it was very easy for me to hop into a shuttle bus. Upper class or not, everyone heartily applauded Angela Meade and the rest of the cast at the end of the performance, and the three leading ladies (the two female singers and the director Anne Bogart) received well-deserved bouquets of flowers afterward.

Here are links to two reviews I recommend: one from DCMetroTheaterArts and one from Opera Warhorses, where Saturday's performance is rightfully described as “dazzling” and “legend-making.”

The WNO production made me love "Norma" so much that I began to search for a good recording of the opera on Amazon as soon as I got home – something I rarely do, given the number of recordings I already have. I think I've settled for this one. The production is definitely worth a trip and the voices are spell-binding. Run to Kennedy Center while you can.

Additional resources:

• "Opera Insight" at the Kennedy Center, where members of the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program perform musical highlights from WNO’s productions of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut and Bellini’s Norma.
• A WNO blog post about "Bellini's Art of Drama Through Music".

Enjoy! This Norma production is a gem.

Music Innovations

I was amazed by the many innovative ideas related to the performance of, and the teaching of, classical music described in the Winter 2012 issue of Listen magazine. Classical music has long inspired more groundbreaking thinking than it is usually given credit for – from trends such as atonality, which I am personally not enthusiastic about but does represent a radical shift in music composition, to the rise of the budget recording company Naxos, now twenty-five (and the focus on another article of the same issue).

It is wonderful to see classical musicians and managers try new ideas – especially technology-related ideas – to adapt to the twenty-first century and attract new audiences. Here are the articles that caught my attention. “Attack of the big screens” discusses the recent trend by organizations such as the Vancouver Symphony and the New World Symphony to use big projection screens in their concerts to add a visual arts dimension to concerts that, traditionally, have only been heard. There is of course a risk that the visual element will distract from the music, but since most people are visual rather than auditory types, how many concert-goers can’t help but have their attention drift to their work or their children during a purely auditory performance anyway? (Sorry, the conductor's hand gestures don't count as entertainment.)

Well-chosen visual elements can help sustain attention and perhaps give listeners new insights into the music. For instance, according to the article, the Houston Symphony included NASA-provided images of the solar system for performances of Holst’s The Planets back in 2010. The production has since then traveled to several other cities. Personally, I’d love to see someone combine some of the great symphonies of the modern repertoire with modern dance. Another idea that seems to be popular nowadays is for orchestras to play the score of films – in fact, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, led by Marin Alsop (about whom I’ve written elsewhere) recently gave a concert version of the 1938 movie Alexander Nevsky, with a score by the great composer Sergei Prokofiev.

That score happens to be mentioned in the Listen article, because a New York-based producer created a concert presentation of the movie, using a restored print and Prokofiev’s score, as early as 1987. Just the other week, I noticed as I was reading the credits at the end of the movie Lincoln that the score had been performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Opportunities for top music orchestras remain in high-quality movies, and could represent an interesting way to broaden audiences. (A young adult I chatted with when I attended the Aspen Music Festival last summer also seemed to think programming more high-caliber movie scores would increase the appeal of classical music. It seems the time is ripe for such an idea to take hold.)

“A multimedia maestro” describes an app created by Maestro Esa-Pekka Salonen (music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic until 2009 and now with the Philharmonia Orchestra in London), which the journalist summarizes as “a fairly comprehensive look at the inner workings of a symphony orchestra” using “eight significant pieces of orchestra music from the Classical period to the present” and allowing users to “run several windows simultaneously”, including some quite sophisticated layouts of the different sections playing as well as a scrolling score and “a graphical score of the sounds being generated,” whatever that is supposed to mean. This is only one of the technology projects that fascinate Salonen, who recently visited MIT’s famed Media Lab to learn about new interfaces that transcribe hand gestures moving in space, such as the conductor’s movement. I can’t wait to learn about what other innovations he will undoubtedly pioneer in the coming years.

Finally, the “Discovery – Outreach” section has a wonderful article about online music lessons provided by start-up ArtistWorks, which “has developed a roster of nearly twenty musicians who together have recorded thousands of hours of video lessons”. The lessons rely on one-on-one interactions: “student subscribers record and upload videos of themselves performing… A few days later they get a video response from the teacher.” A key selling point of ArtistWorks is that its teachers include musicians from the very best orchestras around, such as three Philadelphia Orchestra principals and a Los Angeles Philharmonic violinist.

The article provides the perspective of the classical guitarist who helped start the Curtis Institute of Music’s guitar department, quoting him as quickly amassing “more than a hundred” students. Many students who would love to learn an instrument may live in small towns with limited access to instructors, and this can encourage them along in a hobby that fosters a wide range of skills while giving them access to musicians at the top of their profession – what an amazing opportunity to connect with role models.

After all this talk of technological advances in music, I can’t resist ending this post with a mention of the Grand Teton Music Festival in Wyoming in Jackson, Wyoming, with its stunning surroundings in nature, with Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks in the background. Not much tech there, but time for the musicians to "hike, bike and canoe" on their days off between rehearsals. 

"The Juilliard Effect"

I'm not sure why I kept an old print-out of this 2004 New York Times for so long, but "The Juilliard Effect", about what became of Juilliard-trained musicians ten years after graduation, has always fascinated me, with its peek into the lives of successful musicians playing in big-name orchestras such as the San Francisco Symphony and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and other very talented artists who ended up leaving their passion behind and now make a living in careers ranging from insurance underwriter to fitness trainer to software engineer.

From the NYT article: "In the end, maybe going to a conservatory is like being a compulsive gambler: It is one big bet, but the drive to study music is so blinding, and doing anything else so inconceivable, that young players are oblivious to the risk. Sometimes it is hard to determine whether they are driven by single-mindedness or they live in self-denial... Inevitably, many will be disillusioned; some, enough so to leave the profession. But every one of those graduates has an indelible stamp."

Ken Burns's "Jazz"

 I recently finished watching all ten DVDs of Ken Burns's 2000 "Jazz" documentary - and I've got to say the miniseries did not disappoint. I've owned the book for a while and some of the CDs but for some reason I'd never watched the documentary until now, and I'm glad I finally did, because as much as I've enjoyed listening to jazz for years, I knew very little about many key artists besides superstars like Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis.

Jazz appeals very strongly to me because it was developed by artists fighting oppression and developing their own musical language to express themselves in spite of severe challenges that should have broken their spirit but did not, in particular: segregation, racism, poverty, and personal difficulties that sometimes led to alcoholism or drug addiction.

For me jazz is the music form that most convincingly embodies creativity and resilience, and in the present days where inequity in America has reached levels not seen since the 1920s and where more and more citizens feel left behind, I wish there was more of an effort to return jazz to its place of choice in the pantheon of American music.

I can't think of another type of music that would convey more compellingly a message of fortitude  - the lyrics of today's pop and hip-hop songs just don't have the same power, and let's not talk about the melodies themselves. (Country could be an exception, I guess: there are some beautiful country songs. But nothing has the power of jazz and blues.)

I found myself absolutely fascinated by the first nine DVDs of the series. The last one, though, came across as a bit rushed and cursory. Has there been really so few jazz bands worth mentioning in the two or three decades before the documentary was completed? I was pleased to see Wynton Marsalis and his band receive much deserved coverage, and yet I couldn't help feeling from watching the documentary that jazz was dying and would soon only be heard in concert halls in front of well-behaved, polite audiences listening to a relic of times long past.

I'm not much of a jazz expert by any means but people like Keith Jarrett and Pat Metheny come to mind as artists who have made substantial contributions to the music scene (and if I am aware of them, you can be sure their contributions are hard to miss). Who will make a documentary of today's jazz scene? Who will change the perception that it is a fading art form pushed to the sidelines?

Jazz today should be more relevant than ever amidst talks about "the 1%" and an accumulation of wealth not seen since, you guessed it, "the Jazz Age"; yet it doesn't seem that jazz musicians have made any particular effort to market their art as a good means of expressing our society's malaise (indeed, a better way of expressing anything, compared to most songs played on the radio) - or if they have, that these attempts have been noticed by the media.

But jazz is much more than the background music of John Coltrane or others that one plays at fashionable dinner parties. Thankfully, NPR valiantly continues to cover jazz as a vibrant music genre - see for instance its selection of the top 10 jazz albums of 2012 here. The New York Times also has a jazz topic online and HBO's series Treme includes well-drawn portraits of jazz musicians in New Orleans. I wonder what a documentary about today's jazz scene would look like.

This being said, I still want to give Burns's "Jazz" five stars, because Burns and his creative team are enormously gifted story-tellers who, by showing us mostly still pictures of artists long dead, are capable of making us care about these people thanks to some well-chosen anecdotes and inspiring music. I found the final days of jazz legends such as Charlie Parker and Duke Ellington particularly moving, as were the detox story of Miles Davis, the rags-to-riches story of Benny Goodman, and the untimely deaths of Chick Webb and Clifford Brown. I also discovered a newly found appreciation of vocalists such as Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald.

"Jazz" is best savored one episode at a time, and now that I've gone through the whole series once I'll make sure to watch it again at a slower pace. Much to look forward to in 2013!

"La Boheme" in Philadelphia

Last month I was lucky to see a performance of "La Boheme" at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, and I've got to say, as much as I've enjoyed the Boheme productions I've seen at the Met in New York and in Santa Fe, this one stood out by a mile. It achieved that distinction by cleverly injecting (Philly-inspired!) modernism in the set while eschewing the pitfalls of an outright modern production. I only wish more directors possessed that kind of creativity.

Of course if you follow the opera scene you know that I'm referring to the innovative use of high-tech "animated" paintings, drawn from the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Barnes Collection (which re-opened in May nearby), displaying works created around the time the opera is supposed to take place. The paintings projected on the screen, arranged in a gallery-wall-like fashion on one wall of the set and also replacing Marcello's canvas, changed throughout the performance in a very smooth, unobstructive manner that did not take attention away from the singers and yet presented a refreshing element of novelty - precisely the sort of twist such a workhorse of the opera world needed to get noticed by the media. The production was the brainchild of Davide Livermore, whom I'll certainly keep an eye on in the future.

The singers were excellent, especially the lead male singer Bryan Hymel (a 2008 graduate of the local Academy of Vocal Arts), and I enjoyed the performance from beginning to end. As I was leaving I couldn't help thinking about how much more gratifying I find going to Philly for three operas a year, each shown to the public a handful of times - five, if you care to know - with each production showcasing up-and-coming, talented young singers, rather than heading to New York to see "arrived" superstars in the enormously costly productions at the Met, with ticket prices to match and performances six days a week throughout the season.

I've come to find the Metropolitan Opera in strong dissonance with my personality, for lack of a better way of expressing it. It is tempting to call the Met "stuffy", but the issue is more complex than that: I've enjoyed a number of new productions there, in particular "Tosca" and "Carmen", and I even liked what I saw of their new Ring cycle (although in all honesty I saw only the first of the four operas since the cycle became sold out almost as soon as it went on sale, at least for performances I could have attended.)

So the Met has definitely brought forward enjoyable new productions. My problem with it, though, is that I feel it drips with money to an extent I find a bit revolting. While fund-raising is a normal part of nonprofit operations, at the Met opera becomes about the donors much more than about the singers; anyway once they make it to the Met the singers must be so well-paid that it really turns into the 0.01% of the New York world paying homage to the 0.01% of the opera profession - enjoyable to watch in HD, but something I no longer care to support through ticket purchases.

When I go and see an opera in Philly, I know I will support young singers and the "gritty" vibe of Philly seeps through the novelty of the productions, which I find appealing. (Their Traviata two years ago, set in the jazz age of the 1920s, was far superior to the Met's new, cold production with all the white decor, black costumes and red sofa. I also appreciated that the lead female singer for Manon Lescaut last year was a black woman, the very talented Michelle Johnson. You don't see enough minorities in leading opera roles.)

In Philly I feel that my attendance has an impact and helps people with a passion achieve their dream. This is not to say that opera in Philly attracts a much younger crowd than in New York, but at least the wealth on display isn't a turnoff: the focus remains squarely on what is happening on stage and the exhilarating feeling that this or that singer might just have been cast in the role that will "make" his career. I am proud to be a part of that - and if you had seen Bryan Hymel's smile during curtain calls when people hollered bravo at him, you'd have been proud to have played a bit in his success too, simply by showing up. Maybe next time.

Benjamin Zander's TED talk

For today's post, I thought I'd mention Ben Zander's TED talk on classical music, which has already gathered almost 3 million views at the time of this writing.

Zander is the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic and co-author, with his wife Rosamund Stone Zander, of The Art of Possibility, one of the first personal-growth books I read when I came to the States (I even remember when I read it: November 2000), and which profoundly affected me via its authenticity and generosity of spirit.

I've been blessed with the opportunity of attending several of Zander's concerts when I lived in Massachusetts and it's always a pleasure to hear someone advocate for classical music so passionately. In just twenty minutes for this 2008 TED talk, Zander manages to convey his genuine belief that everybody can love classical music - but a lot of people don't know it yet.

Personally, I've found that the right works of classical music move and inspire me in ways that modern music cannot. Brahms, Schumann, Beethoven, Brahms: those are the composers who give me faith in humanity. The interpreters inspire me through their talent as well - everyone should go and listen to their favorite piece in a concert hall and not just on their iPod. (Most orchestras have some affordable seats, and since the music counts more than the scenery, partial views from the stage aren't much of an issue.) Listening to live classical music might change your life.

I particularly love watching/hearing young musicians at the beginning of their career - one of the highlights of my stay in Paris in June was the concert given by students from the New England Conservatory and Preparatory School in a church of the Latin Quarter. In addition, my favorite moments of the Aspen Music Festival involved concerts given by the students: the free concert "on top of the mountain" by a brass quintet, and the performance of Copland's Third Symphony on my last day. (I know I may not be able to do this if I have children, so I take advantage of my current lifestyle while I can. If you can't go to a concert hall, at least try to listen to a performance live, either broadcast on the radio or streamed on the Internet. There is a huge difference in energy between something played at that very moment by real musicians and something that has been recorded in a studio before it found its way to your CD player.)

Classical music still has the power to bring the best in people, but they need to know how to start, which is why Zander's steadfast efforts to bring classical music to underprivileged children resonate for me to this day. The moment in the video where he talks about a boy in Northern Ireland who thought about his slain brother - and cried for the first time about the sibling's death - while Zander played Chopin brought tears to my eyes. We need more Benjamin Zander. The world is a better place because of him.