Friday, November 15, 2013
Hold on to your hats...it's the R3 Girls
It's BBC Children in Need again and Radio 3 is pitting girls against boys as their competitive star turn. So here are the girls. Singers are Ruby Hughes, Clara Mouriz, Charlotte Trepess, Elizabeth Watts and Kitty Whately, with the ladies of the BBC Philharmonic and The Halle conducted by Sian Edwards. And look out for special guests in the ranks: violinist Tasmin Little and pianist Kathryn Stott. (Why not a woman composer too? As for Pudsey Bear - we don't know about that...)
Happy Friday. I am chopping a script, and it hurts. Cuts are a vicious matter. I'm wondering if this is how our prime minister feels sometimes.
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Woman of the Future
Brava bravissima to the young Romanian pianist Alexandra Dariescu, who has just won the Woman of the Future Award.
Alexandra says: "This evening we celebrated women, equality between genders and an internationally cherished Romania, a country that makes me proud. I was the only non Brit in the Arts and Culture category and it gives the hugest of honours to announce that I was awarded the Woman of the Future Award, becoming an Ambassador for classical music. It's an exciting time for women all over the world and a huge step for us, strong, united and because we can!"
Alexandra says: "This evening we celebrated women, equality between genders and an internationally cherished Romania, a country that makes me proud. I was the only non Brit in the Arts and Culture category and it gives the hugest of honours to announce that I was awarded the Woman of the Future Award, becoming an Ambassador for classical music. It's an exciting time for women all over the world and a huge step for us, strong, united and because we can!"
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
TONIGHT: Alicia's Gift goes to Leighton House
Tonight: we are delighted that Alicia's Gift: The Concert of the Novel will be presented by the Kensington & Chelsea Music Society at Leighton House Museum, 12 Holland Park Road
London W14 8LZ. It's an amazing venue, the former home of Lord Leighton and his art collection, where east meets west...
Kick-off is 7.30pm and Viv and I, much encouraged by Saturday's successful outing (unexpectedly alongside a Mighty Wurlitzer), are looking forward to it immensely. Enormous thanks to the doughty Peter Thomas and the enthusiasm of KCMS for this project. I read; Viv plays Chopin, Falla, Debussy, Ravel, Granados, Messiaen and Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue; and we finish with eine kleine piano duet...
BOOK HERE: http://www.kcmusic.org.uk/alicia_concert.htm
London W14 8LZ. It's an amazing venue, the former home of Lord Leighton and his art collection, where east meets west...
Kick-off is 7.30pm and Viv and I, much encouraged by Saturday's successful outing (unexpectedly alongside a Mighty Wurlitzer), are looking forward to it immensely. Enormous thanks to the doughty Peter Thomas and the enthusiasm of KCMS for this project. I read; Viv plays Chopin, Falla, Debussy, Ravel, Granados, Messiaen and Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue; and we finish with eine kleine piano duet...
BOOK HERE: http://www.kcmusic.org.uk/alicia_concert.htm
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
A tribute to John Tavener (1944-2013)
Here is my short but heartfelt tribute to John Tavener, who died today at the age of 69, greatly mourned. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/pioneer-of-new-classical-music-john-tavener-dies-aged-69-8935709.html
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John Tavener
How improvising can change your brain
Fascinating stuff, this. Above, Gabriela Montero improvises on the Goldberg Variations theme. I've always listened to her (and many others) and wondered "How does she do that?" Now Neuroscience 2013, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, has released some information about what improvising can do for the brain, and vice-versa...
(Apologies for simply running the press release. Am short of time at present.)
To Change Your Brain: Improvise, Improvise, and Improvise Some More
With practice, specific brain circuits are strengthen and music flows
Brain
circuits involved in musical improvisation are shaped by systematic
training, suggest a new study presented at Neuroscience 2013, the annual
meeting of the Society for Neuroscience and the world’s largest source
of emerging news about brain science and health.
Researchers
also found that more experienced improvisers show higher connectivity
between three major regions of the brain’s frontal lobe while
improvising. This suggests that the generation of meaningful music
during improvisation can become highly automated —performed with little
conscious attention, reported lead author Ana Pinho, MS, of the
Karolinska Institutet.
“Our
research explored whether the brain can be trained to achieve greater
proficiency in improvisation,” Pinho said. “The lower activity in
frontal brain regions that we saw in trained improvisers is interesting,
and one could speculate that it is related to the feeling of ‘flow.’
This is the feeling that many musicians report feeling during
improvisation – when music comes without conscious thought or effort.”
Improvisational
training entails the acquisition of long-term stores of musical
patterns and cognitive strategies to aid in their expressive, skillful
combination. To test brain activity during improvisation, researchers
worked with 39 pianists with a wide range of both classical piano
training and training in jazz improvisation. They used functional
magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which images blood flow in different
parts of the brain.
While
the pianists improvised for brief periods on a 12-key MRI compatible
piano keyboard, researchers tracked activity in the frontal lobe. More
experienced improvisers showed a combination of higher connectivity and
lower overall regional activity during improvisation. Higher
connectivity also reflected extensive reorganization of functional
connections within the regions of the frontal lobe that control motion.
According
to the researchers, the extensive connectivity within the frontal lobe
of experienced improvisers may allow the musicians to seamlessly
generate meaningful re-combinations of music.
“This
study raises interesting questions for future research, including how
and to what extent creative behaviors can be learned and automated,”
said Pinho.
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