All Featured Stories articles
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Blogs‘A string quartet is like a family’: catching up with the Katarina Quartet
The ensemble reflects on its meteoric rise since becoming Juilliard graduate quartet in residence and receiving numerous accolades, ahead of an upcoming performance that includes a New York premiere and a Mendelssohn Octet collaboration with the Ulysses Quartet
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BlogsConcert review: Del Sol Quartet and Nick Davies perform genre-bending work ‘Oh World, Goodnight’
Richard Linnett reports back from a performance by the Del Sol Quartet and Nick Davies at Chatter on 18 April, where fugal forms and Klezmer collided in a work by Derek David
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BlogsEarth Day with ecofeminism: exploring nature-inspired works by women composers
In this Earth Day reflection, Darrian Lee examines musical repertoire by three living women composers, whose works intertwine environmental advocacy, womanhood, and contemporary classical music
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BlogsAlexander Aitken’s violin: the instrument that travelled from Gallipoli to the Somme
Benjamin Baker tells the story of mathematician and violinist Alexander Aitken, whose modest instrument accompanied him through the First World War and now inspires a new commission at AWE London ahead of Anzac Day, tracing memory, music and survival across a century
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BlogsComposers create amazing worlds for us to explore: the Jupiter Quartet on its new album, ‘Undreamed Shores’
Liz Freivogel, violist of the Jupiter Quartet, speaks about the power of collaboration between composers and performers, illustrated in the ensemble’s new album featuring works by Michi Wiancko, Stephen Andrew Taylor and Kati Agócs
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BlogsTwo instruments, one voice: Andy Leftwich on his violin and mandolin
Grammy‑winning musician Andy Leftwich reflects on the violin and mandolin that have defined his career, and how playing the two instruments inform each other
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BlogsBrouhaha: Shaped by Fire with violinist Maiani da Silva
Maiani da Silva shares insights on her new album featuring six commissions inspired by intriguing aspects of human nature, highlighting the violin’s versatility as a solo instrument
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Premium ❘ FocusPostcard from the Netherlands: String Quartet Biennale Amsterdam
Clare Varney reports from the String Quartet Biennale Amsterdam, where an array of star performers and repertoire old and new proved that the genre is alive and well
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Premium ❘ FeatureMany voices, one sound: orchestral blending
How is it possible to create a seamless yet distinctive orchestral string sound? Players from some of the world’s leading orchestras speak to Peter Somerford about the techniques, traditions and listening skills that shape an orchestral identity
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Premium ❘ FeatureChiaroscuro Quartet: gut instinct
The musicians of the Chiaroscuro Quartet talk to Pauline Harding about the challenges of playing on gut strings, and the emotionally and physically demanding experience of recording the complete Beethoven string quartets
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BlogsBetween D minor and its shadow: listening for meaning in a place of tension
Contrary to the extremes of opinion in music – loud versus soft, technique versus expression, major versus minor – violinist Hector Scott explores how meaning can be found in the tension between these dichotomies
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Blogs‘Big sound – not just loud, but big’: remembering violinist and pedagogue Jan Mark Sloman
Violinist Shannon Lee revisits the lessons, humour and lasting influence of her late teacher Jan Mark Sloman, whose posthumous book Notes to a Violinist captures a lifetime of pedagogical insight and belief in young musicians
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Blogs‘The process of writing has always been the space where I can process everything’: Andrea Casarrubios - Her Voice Matters
Anthony Arnone profiles Spanish‑American composer and cellist Andrea Casarrubios, tracing her journey from world‑class performer to one of today’s most sought‑after voices in string music
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Blogs‘A rendez-vous with silence’: cellist Camille Thomas on making her new album at Tippet Rise Art Center
At Tippet Rise in Montana, where music meets landscape and sculpture, Franco-Belgian cellist Camille Thomas reflects on creating her new album Rendez-vous.
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BlogsConcert review: violinist Rachel Barton Pine bridges classic repertoire and contemporary realities
Richard Linnett reports back from the violinist’s performance of Dvořák, Beethoven, Dolores White, William Grant Still and Billy Childs on 11 April at Los Alamos Concert Association
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BlogsKian Ravaei: intertwining Persian and Jewish Music
Composer Kian Ravaei reflects on writing The Four Seasons of Hamadan, a new work for violin and dancer that intertwines Persian and Jewish traditions
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BlogsThe directness of emotional communication: violinist Niklas Liepe on the works by Academy Award-winning composer Rachel Portman
The violinist speaks to The Strad about Rachel Portman’s work, ahead of a performance featuring arrangements of her well known film scores at the London Soundtrack Festival
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Premium ❘ FeatureYehudi Menuhin 110th anniversary: music with friends
To mark the 110th anniversary of Yehudi Menuhin’s birth on 22 April 1916, Tully Potter presents an overview of the great violinist’s numerous chamber music partnerships and their recordings
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Premium ❘ FocusSentimental Work: Johannes Moser on Lutosławski’s Cello Concerto
For the German–Canadian cellist, the theatricality of Lutosławski’s Cello Concerto opened up a fascinating relationship between soloist and orchestra
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Premium ❘ Feature‘Paganini was a strange, fantastical man’ - From the Archive: April 1896
The celebrated French violinist Charles Dancla (1817–1907) shares his recollections of seeing Nicolò Paganini (1782–1840) perform while he was a youngster
