Confessions of an anxious ballet pianist #27: Playing “Siegfried” from Swan Lake Act 3
"Siegfried" from Act 3 of Swan Lake looks like simple music, but it's harder than it looks to make it sound musical.
A year of ballet playing cards #6 (S6): A barcarole for port de bras
This romance from Bizet's opera The Pearl Fishers is great for an adage or port de bras, perhaps
Music, time and politics in the ballet studio
Just published online, my chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Time in Music, "The politics of musical time in the everyday life of ballet dancers."
Galina Bezuglaya’s second book
Perhaps you have to be as old as I am to be quite as excited about a book arriving from Russia, but it’s doubly exciting since I ordered it on…
A 19th century quadrille generator
I remember inwardly eye-rolling when I heard a teacher many years ago claim excitedly that her pianist “never played the same thing twice.” Call me cynical, but if you’re a…
Can’t tell a waltz from a tango? I have just the song for you
“I can’t tell a waltz from a tango” would be a great title for a ballet-related music course, though in all honesty, “I can’t tell a kujawiak from a redowa”…