In an age where hyper-specialization and specialized knowledge prevail, competition (and success) in a single field of human knowledge, and a comprehensive humanistic education seems to have lost its value, I feel compelled to call a failed violist a maestro. In his musical life, I...
There's an opera by Verdi that, among musicians, is known as "the unnamed": it's said to bring terrible bad luck (not to use more explicit terms). To avoid mentioning it, a universally recognized synonym has been coined: "The Power of Fate." Perhaps because at the...
Sometimes, chance works in our favor. At the finals of the 65th Busoni Competition, one of the contestants—Chinese pianist Yifan Wu, who would go on to win both the First Prize and the Audience Award—delivered a rather unique, forward-looking interpretation of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3...