Playing fairies

The importance of the date may have flown under your radar, but 24 June marks International Fairy Day. Acknowledging just how integrated these treasured tiny creatures of mythic imagination are in everyday life and centuries-old traditions, there will no doubt be numerous festivals taking place around the world in honour of the wee folk who Read More …

Music from the web.

I know they’re out there somewhere… people who don’t run a mile when confronted with an arachnid’s bulbous body and hairy projections, stoically putting your average blogger to timorous shame. It would seem that some classical composers weren’t afraid of getting up close and personal with spiders, either, judging from the number of pieces spun Read More …

Fairy tails

Definitions of the word ‘fairy’ as perceived down the ages are wide-ranging, with notions of diminutive enchantresses contrasting with images of grotesque goblins. How have composers painted the former into humanly-generated sound? Let’s find out. All the audio selections in this week’s blog will feature at least the tail-end of the work, if only to Read More …

Exercising choice

So, with the festive season’s excesses not long past and New Year resolutions on our minds, it doesn’t take much of a leap to imagine that many of us will be thinking about taking more exercise. Going to the gym these days seems to demand the heavy beat of pop music as a constant companion. Read More …

Artists from Naxos of America Family of Distributed Labels Honored with 15 GRAMMY Award Nominations

Note: This post is over a month old. You may want to check later in this blog to see if there is new information. The Recording Academy® honored artists from labels Naxos, Chandos, EuroArts, CPO, Naïve classique and Artek-with a combined 15 nominations across 11 categories this year, thus capturing 23% of the available classical Read More …