El Sistema in Canada

  An update to this page, including a directory of the major Sistema programs, was posted on February 16, 2012, and is available here. I'm somewhat surprised by this realization, but I've never seen a Canadian el Sistema initiative myself. It isn't for lack of programs: I've heard of startups in Calgary, Hamilton, Mississauga, Toronto, … Continue reading El Sistema in Canada

15,000+ unique vistors from 100+ countries

  The month of March marked two major milestones (alliteration unintentional) for this blog: the 15,000th unique visitor since the blog first went public in the Fall of 2009, with one of the last of those representing the one hundredth sovereign nation. (Tajikistan). Concerning the first, that’s only unique visitors: the number of total hits … Continue reading 15,000+ unique vistors from 100+ countries

Sististically speaking

 The following is a commentary on the article published in the current edition of La Scena. For the article itself, click on the image above. In my public speaking engagements, I make a recurring theme of "different vocabularies for different constituents." It's fairly easy for the artistic community to default to emotive terms when describing el … Continue reading Sististically speaking

New Strad Article out!

  In retrospect, I'm not the most likely candidate to be writing about elements of violin pedagogy. On paper my credentials appear respectable, if not even remarkable: a performance with the London Philharmonic Orchestra; collaborations with Marin Alsop - but like most musical CVs, those accomplishments require an extremely narrow interpretation of circumstance to be … Continue reading New Strad Article out!