Shostakovich
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What’s a song that changed your life? View all responses I can’t point to one song and say, “Hearing that changed my life.” But one piece of music made me feel the boundaries of musical expression stretching as I listened. I was thirty when I first heard Dmitri Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto. The first movement drew…
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For decades, I have had a subscription to the world renown, and local treasure, The Philadelphia Orchestra. From the late 80s to the early aughts, I attended concerts at The Academy of Music; since then, at Marian Andersen Hall inside the Kimmel Center. I began my concert-going experience by bringing along my sister. The middle…
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No one would describe Pink Floyd as a band whose strength was vocal art, but their rhythmic pulses and harmonic shifts are among the deftest in classic rock literature—both are evident in the song Astronomy Domine. Led Zeppelin used a large canvas to composed numerous pocket symphonies that bridged rock and blues. With superior musicianship…
