All Featured Stories articles – Page 82
-
VideoRoberts Balanas plays Bobby Hebb on 6 string violin
In this video the Latvian violinist Roberts Balanas, who has been broadcasting a series of virtuosic covers throughout lockdown, plays Bobby Hebb’s Sunny on a 6-string violin with loop pedal cover. Watch Interview with Latvian violinist Roberts Balanas Watch Elton John’s I’m still Standing - arranged for solo violin
-
FocusHow do you balance the piano with strings?
Producing a nuanced, well-balanced and blended combination of piano and strings can be a difficult performance feat to achieve. Pauline Harding talks to chamber musicians, soloists and teachers to discover some of their secrets
-
NewsItalians play ‘Accelerations’ waltz in protest at slow vaccine rollout
Johann Strauss II’s famous accellerando chosen ’to highlight the need to speed up vaccine delivery’, says organiser
-
Focus7 warming up and cooling down exercises for musicians
Suggested warm-ups prior to playing and cool-down stretches following performance and/or practice
-
Video‘Gethsemane’ for violin solo by Deborah Pritchard
In the lead-up to Easter the violinist Greta Mutlu plays Deborah Pritchard’s new solo violin piece ‘Gethsemane’, depicting the tranquility of the Garden of Gethsemane during the Passion story on Good Friday. Read ’Inside Colour’ for violin solo by Deborah Pritchard
-
FeatureSentimental Work: Daniel Hope
Schnittke’s First Violin Sonata was the Irish–German violinist’s introduction to the composer’s work – as well as the perfect opening to meet the composer himself
-
VideoTartini’s Devil’s Trill meets Klezmer-style improvisation
The music slips from the world of Baroque into a klezmer-style improvisation in this performance of Tartini’s Devil’s Trill by David Le Page and the Orchestra of the Swan from their latest streamed concert: ’Interpretation of Dreams’. The concert also includes music by Pärt, Messiaen, Monti, Cervantes, Liszt, Badalamenti and ...
-
NewsBerlin Philharmonic cellist Ottomar Borwitzky has died
Borwitzky spent 37 years as the orchestra’s first principal cellist
-
Focus‘I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to play the violin any more’ – David Garrett
Garrett was plagued by feelings of inadequacy after spending his childhood in the classical spotlight, he tells Charlotte Smith
-
NewsDutch violinist and pedagogue Coosje Wijzenbeek has died
Wijzenbeek, whose students included Janine Jansen, was celebrated for her work with young musicians
-
VideoAlexander Hersh plays Fauré’s Romance
In this video - the last in a series fusing music and narrative - cellist Alexander Hersh plays Fauré’s Romance for Cello and Piano, Op.69, with pianist Victor Asunción. Hersh says: ‘With the onset of a worldwide pandemic, I’ve come to regard beautifully conceived and filmed classical music videos ...
-
VideoSend back the echo
United Strings of Europe perform ‘send back the echo’ - a reflection on the alienation faced by the deaf community and people of colour within music, culture and the arts. It is inspired by the letters of Beethoven revealing his sense of passion, fear and joy as he reconciled ...
-
BlogsWhat kind of musicianship should we value?
Marking the Manchester Collective’s fifth anniversary and the release of their first album, ‘The Centre is Everywhere’, the group’s Music Director and Co-Founder Rakhi Singh reflects on what qualities she values in her musical colleagues
-
BlogsHow can musicians return to working life?
Following the Association of British Orchestras conference, Claire Gevaux, Help Musicians’ Programme Director, discusses how we can build sustainable careers in classical music post-pandemic
-
FocusSteven Isserlis – ‘In private Ivry Gitlis was quite similar to how he was in public’
When Ivry Gitlis died on Christmas Eve last year at the age of 98 there was an outpouring of love and affection from the musical community. In this article, paying tribute to the great violinist’s life and career, Tully Potter quotes cellist Steven Isserlis
-
VideoDavid Garrett plays Happy by Pharrell
An orchestra of David Garretts brings strings and body percussion to Pharrell Williams’s feelgood hit
-
Focus‘It was the escape plan for less than first-class musicians’ – David Garrett on changing attitudes to crossover playing
Abandoned by his management, David Garrett had to overcome snobbery to return to the classical spotlight, as he tells Charlotte Smith
-
Premium ❘ FeatureSoundpost: Letters to the Editor April 2021
A selection of letters The Strad receives each month from its readers around the world: April 2021 issue
-
Premium ❘ NewsAnalysis April 2021: Crossing the streams
Live streaming has become one of the main – and in some cases the only – outlet for musicians to perform during the pandemic. But how viable is it as a profit-making enterprise? By Peter Somerford
-
Premium ❘ FeatureDavid Garrett: His own path
At the age of 40, German–American violinist David Garrett is a bona fide crossover star, in non-Covid times playing regularly to thousands at sold-out arena shows. But, as he tells Charlotte Smith, he has no intention of deserting his classical roots


























