Check This Out! - The Deal of The Century

When it comes to purchasing classical music, I head to Naxos first. They offer high quality recordings at a low price. So, imagine my thrill last week when I discovered that they were offering 24 hours of classical music for $9.99 on iTunes!

Naxos has taken 22 of their full-length albums and compiled them into one AMAZING collection. Which includes:

BACH, J.S.: Brandenburg Concertos, Vol. 1
BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonatas Nos. 8, 14 and 23
BRAHMS: Symphony No. 2 / Serenade No. 2
CHOPIN: Nocturnes (Selection)
DEBUSSY: Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune / Nocturnes
DOWLAND, J.: Dowland's Tears - Lute Music, Vol. 2
DVORAK: Symphony No. 9 / Symphonic Variations
FAURE: Requiem / Messe Basse
GRIEG: Orchestral Music
HANDEL: Messiah (1751 Version) [double album]
HAYDN: String Quartets Op. 76, Nos. 1- 3
HILDEGARD VON BINGEN: Heavenly Revelations
LISZT: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 / Totentanz
MOZART: Requiem in D Minor
PALESTRINA: Missa Papae Marcelli
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Sheherazade / The Tale of Tsar Saltan
SCHUBERT: String Quartets (Complete), Vol. 1
SCHUMANN, R.: Kinderszenen / Papillons / Carnaval
TALLIS: Spem in alium / Missa Salve Intemerata
TCHAIKOVSKY: Nutcracker / Swan Lake (Excerpts)
VIVALDI: 4 Seasons / Wind Concertos
WAGNER, R.: The Ring (Orchestral Highlights)

I purchased this collection for my own library, and I'm recommending it for my students, too!

Check This Out! - Musopen

I came across Musopen a while back while compiling my "Listening Room" project. It is full public domain downloads of classical music, that can be used for various projects. From the website:

Musopen is an online music library of copyright free (public domain) music. We want to give the world access to music without the legal hassles so common today. There is a great deal of music that has expired copyrights, but almost no recordings of this music is in the public domain. We aim to record or obtain recordings that have no copyrights so that our visitors may listen, re-use, or in any way enjoy music. Put simply, our mission is to set music free.

Public domain works are not protected by U.S. copyright law and are free to be used, copied, performed and distributed by anyone for any purpose, even if sold for profit.

I've been finding various ways to use this website in my lessons. One of my students is using My First Piano Adventures, and really enjoys learning about all of the composers! She told me that she listens to the corresponding CDs every night while she goes to sleep, and she was very disappointed to find out that Book C didn't have a CD with it. So, what did I do? As we've been studying the various composers, we've been going to Musopen and creating a CD of their works! Problem solved!

I hope that some of you find this resource as useful as I do... It was just too cool not to share!

The Listening Room Project

One of the things I have been stressing recently in my camps, classes and lessons is a love and appreciation for classical music. You would be surprised (I know I was) at the way my students sit riveted listening to and watching performances of classical music. I started working a week or so ago on a project for my students - a "Listening Room" on my studio website. I have scoured the internet, searching for good music for them to enjoy, without having ot pay tons of money.

I put this list of links to different orchestras, ensembles and performers that make recordings of their concerts available free of charge. Please feel free to share this list with your students and blog readers! All I ask is that you link back to my blog, and if you know of any other sources, pleases share them with us in the comments section!

Click HERE to visit the Listening Room!

A Video (...and a story)

Guess who our composer of the day is!



My students make me smile:

     "Wow! He's REALLY old!"
     "He died WHEN?! 1971?! My DAD wasn't even born then!"
     "How do we have videos from that long ago?"
     "Wasn't that before video cameras?"