As I keep up my maddening work pace this week, I thought I’d share some interesting articles and posts that I’ve enjoyed over the past few days:

- Via Chris Foley’s Collaborative Piano Blog: Chris shares a hilarious video of the singer/comedienne Anna Russell’s take on how to be an opera singer

- As an educator and as a strong believer and advocate for early childhood education, I have always maintained a strong interest in the field of cognitive psychology. This article on Elizabeth Spelke’s fascinating research at Harvard was interesting to me for several reasons. Although babies can develop visual differentiations between races and skin colors by the age of three months, language (that is, sound) and what we hear plays a greater factor in a child’s long-term development.

- Wil Wheaton’s blog is always a very funny, open, and refreshingly honest account of his approach to creativity and life. He recently wrote a post that discusses his thoughts about his creative career and shares some resources for aspiring writers.

- As those of you who follow this blog know, I took some time off this past weekend to do some internal spring cleaning. Going offline and taking some time for myself was wonderful and something that I very much needed to do. Tying in with my interest in education, both Chris Brogan and Chris Pirillo recently dealt with the issue of information overload, and how best to manage and handle our time in our current wired society. What I enjoyed the most about both posts was the idea that in the end (as I realized for myself last week) the solution lies not necessarily with better machines or filtering software, but with our own human selves, and our ability to decide and choose how we each define and take responsibility for our lives.

- Chris Brogan on saying no
- Chris Pirillo: How do you deal with information overload?

I recently came across two classical concert musicians who are using their education and skill to express through comedy, much like Victor Borge did in the past.

For more videos of their humor, you can visit their website which has more videos as well as information about their background, their show, and upcoming performances which include a tour with violinist Gidon Kremer in the fall.

This particular video seemed to be an appropriate way to start off the week - enjoy!



I Will Survive

General News:

1. My upcoming recital in Madrid on the 26th for Casa Asia and the Madrid Cultural Center will touch on the music of Takemitsu. I’ll be performing both of his Rain Sketches in addition to works by Chopin, Ravel, and Debussy - I wanted to place Takemitsu’s music in context to these other French and French-influenced composers to see the influence their music had on his own compositions. It has been an interesting experience working on this program - I feel as though I have been inhabiting a very atmospheric world of suggestive language these past few weeks. You can find the program and press release for the concert to download from my site here (in Spanish). If you’re in Madrid and have time that evening to go to the beautiful Conde Duque hall, I hope to see you there.

2. Sarah Canice Funke wrote an article about me for Suite 101 this weekend, focusing on my integration of the web with my music life, and wrote a bit about my blogging and photography. I have always been written about in terms of my music and performances, and have to admit that I am blushing a little because I somehow feel as though I’ve been recognized for my small, modest blogging and photography efforts…which is nice.

Other news and links:

I spent some time this weekend exploring the blogosphere, and am once again amazed at all of the “good stuff” out there. Here are some links that I enjoyed:

1.The Collaborative Piano Blog: Chris has a great blog that covers everything from collaborative piano work, pianists, and the state of the classical music field.
Two recent posts brought up interesting questions regarding our field:

http://collaborativepiano.blogspot.com/2008/03/good-times-bad-times.html : links and news about the classical field in the US, including the situation in Columbus.

http://collaborativepiano.blogspot.com/2008/03/free-ebook-manifesto-on-trust-economies.html: References another Chris (Chris Brogan - see below) and his recent ebook manifesto with Julien Smith, and the questions raised by the new media/technology and how it affects classical musicians.

2. The Well-Tempered Blog: Bart’s blog covers all things piano related, with interesting tidbits and links.
Recent interesting and amusing posts include:

http://pianophilia.blogspot.com/2008/03/king-of-bling-liberace.html : “King of Bling” is a very apt title.

http://pianophilia.blogspot.com/2008/03/pyrophones-intonarumori-and-things-that.html: Interesting find.

http://pianophilia.blogspot.com/2008/03/rocket-or-piano.html : About the new Schimmel Pegasus Piano which quite simply, frightens me.

3. Solitude in Music: Jeff, a classical guitartist in Singapore, shares his lovely thoughts about music.
One I enjoyed recently:

http://solitudeinmusic.blogspot.com/2008/02/i-am-amateur.html : Something I have often thought about.

4. Chris Brogan
I’m putting up a general link for Chris’ site because I enjoy his posts and ideas. Enthusiastic, passionate about social media, and an all-around extraordinary engager, Chris consistently provides food for thought, whatever field you may be in.

As an artist, the state of my field (classical music) and the state of the arts in general, is an important concern. One thing I love about technology and the internet is how radically it is starting to change the dynamics and the paradigms with which we view the creative world. I think important questions are being raised and interesting discussions are starting to take place in which we examine the place creativity has in our society and what we can do to nurture and support it.

Kevin Kelly always has unique views on the wired world, and I found his recent article about artists and fans, fascinating.

Link: Kevin Kelly: 1000 True Fans

I thought it would be nice to occasionally share funny videos about classical music from YouTube. This one was actually shared with me by my friend (thanks, Edward!). It’s been seen 4.3 million times, but I had to link to it in case you hadn’t seen it yet.

Pachelbel’s Rant: