Tag: Classical Music

J.C. Bach and the Exhaustion of Feeling

I was around 16 years old at the time of my humanities moment. I had been playing the viola for 7 years. As usually occurred, I became bored…

Bocelli’s Gift

Since our historic site is closed, I’ve been trying to connect OTHER people to the humanities via our social media channels. I had heard on NPR that Andrea…

God in Music Form: Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony

My mother received her undergraduate degree in Art History after her three children had graduated. As siblings with the label first generation college students, we like to think…

A Soul Filled with Music

Thomas describes the impact that a conductor at a childhood music camp had in showing her the transformative potential of music. His passion and intensity led to a…

Cultivating Emotional Intelligence Through Classical Music

As a child, Ken Stringfellow had difficulty relating to others and understanding seemingly inscrutable social cues. Turning to his parents’ collection of LPs changed all that. By immersing…

Becoming a One-Man Band

Heitzenrater describes his transition from an early focus on classical music to the revelation that multi-track recording could enable him to reach new creative heights in musical composition…

Music Connects Us

Music has always been a powerful and connective force, especially when we least expect it. My father dedicated his life to classical music. Classical was the only form…

Chimborazo and the Sublime

There is a term in the humanities known as “the Sublime” (Rabb). The Sublime specifically refers to a concept in art established during the Romantic era when landscape…

A Lifetime of Humanities Moments

Some years ago, I was asked to give a lecture to students enrolled in a small university’s humanities program describing the personal epiphany I experienced which led to…

The Berlin Philharmonic Plays Mahler

David Denby discusses hearing Herbert von Karajan conducting a performance of Mahler’s 9th Symphony—a moment which made him realize the power of music as a universal language. –…

Dvorak’s cello concerto

It was our first real date. His blind date had backed out and I volunteered to hear Rostropovich’s debut in Washington to play the Dvořák. It was not…