All Featured Stories articles – Page 69
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FocusTwo simple exercises for smooth string crossings
How to play controlled, smooth and seamless melodic lines
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FocusHybrid model: Postcard from Trondheim
The 2021 Princess Astrid International Music Competition worked around the continuing pandemic restrictions with online preliminary rounds followed by a live final on 18 November. Tim Homfray travelled north to witness some compelling performances
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Focus6 ways to improve your string crossing
Tips for even and seamless string crossing from The Strad’s archive
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FocusJohn Williams at 90: Anne-Sophie Mutter’s ‘respect for this gigantic musician’
In honour of John Williams’s 90th birthday today, here’s an extract from April 2020, where violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter spoke to Charlotte Smith about her new recording collaboration with the renowned film composer
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Blogs‘Your salad will be so tasty!’: When musicians and food collide
Paring away at old transcripts from former Strad interviewees, Rita Fernandes presents string players’ food and cooking analogies that faced the chop and didn’t make the final dish
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FocusSentimental Work: Philippe Graffin
For the Elgar Violin Concerto, the French violinist has taken advice from Yehudi Menuhin, Josef Gingold and Roger Norrington – as well as the composer’s original manuscript
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Premium ❘ FeatureMasterclass: Moray Welsh on Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata first movement
Moray Welsh looks at the cello version of the first movement, whose successful execution requires boundless musicality, lyricism and technical finesse
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Premium ❘ Article‘We entered, just in time to see the bride and groom exit the church’: Letters to the Editor February 2022
A selection of letters The Strad receives each month from its readers around the world: February 2022 issue
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Premium ❘ FeatureThéotime Langlois de Swarte: Dramatic flair
French Baroque violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte has released four albums in a little over a year. He shares with Charlotte Gardner the origins of his dream of uncovering the works of long-forgotten composers – and how that project has come to fruition
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Premium ❘ FeatureMasterclass: Bruch Romance for Viola and Orchestra op.85
Violist and composer Konstantin Boyarsky considers nerves, narrative and the influence of the opera in his discussion of this late Romantic piece
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Premium ❘ FeatureSession Report: Good as new
The second album from the United Strings of Europe features original arrangements of existing works by artistic director Julian Azkoul – but more than this, the works are thematically linked by transformation and loss, as he tells Toby Deller
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FocusWilma Smith: Life Lessons
The Antipodean violinist on how chamber music and seizing opportunities made for a varied career in the New Zealand String Quartet and as concertmaster of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
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Focus‘A Baroque composer living in the 21st century’ - Steven Isserlis on recording British Solo Cello Music
In this extract from the January 2022 issue, cellist Steven Isserlis speaks about recording works by British composers, who are all linked by a shared respect for the past
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FocusecoRosin by Leatherwood Bespoke Rosin
ecoRosin strives to leave a zero footprint on our planet whilst offering string players premium rosin recipes for colourful music making
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FeatureSentimental Work: Boris Kuschnir on Mozart Violin Concerto no.4
For the Austrian violinist, Mozart’s Violin Concerto no.4 in D major K218 brings back fond memories of David Oistrakh – and a less salubrious recollection of the Tibor Varga Competition. From the October 2019 issue
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Focus‘Minimalistic music is composed in a minimalist way, but I want to get the maximum out of this’
Toby Deller speaks to the LGT Young Soloists artistic director Alexander Gilman about recording Philip Glass’s brand new Symphony no.14 ’Liechtenstein’, in this extract from the January 2022 issue
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FocusPlayer profile: Cellist Sifiso Mbatha
Cellist Sifiso Mbatha is a student of the ARCO Project, a long distance online teaching collaboration between the UK and South Africa. Read about how his involvement with the ARCO Project enabled his journey from Soweto, South Africa, to receiving a full scholarship at the Royal Northern College of Music
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FocusSentimental Work: Roger Tapping
Listening to Brahms’s String Sextet no.1 op.18 is one of the earliest memories of the Juilliard Quartet violist – and might even be the reason why he took up the viola
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Focus‘You’ve got to think outside the box to rise above the parapet’ - Young musicians making a career during the time of Covid
In this extract from the January 2022 issue, Charlotte Gardner speaks to representatives from the City Music Foundation and Young Artists Classical Trust about how young artists can emerge from the pandemic successfully
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FocusSentimental Work: Guy Johnston
The Walton Cello Concerto brings back fond memories for the British cellist, from one of his first concerts to a recent performance by early mentor Steven Isserlis


























