Classical Music

Does what we put in our heads impact our outlook on life? The media you consume influences how you feel, but how exactly do one’s choices influence mood? Can a dose of music by Aaron Copland get you out of your funk? Will a movement of Igor Stravinsky heard at the wrong time send an emotionally fragile person over the edge?

To call Lucille Salerno a ragtime champion is an understatement. Salerno was a New York native with a lifelong love of syncopated music.  In 1999, she started organizing ragtime concerts in Columbia.

When the jazz pianist Don Shirley died on April 6, his passing was not widely reported.

A New York Times obituary noted that the Jamaican born virtuoso pianist was trained in the classical repertoire. Later, the impresario Sol Hurok advised Shirley “to pursue a career in popular music and jazz.” Hurok warned Shirley that “American audiences were not willing to accept a ‘colored’ pianist on the concert stage.”

After her daughter was born, the classical violinist Rachel Barton Pine started looking into the range of Berceuse or lullabies written for violin.

Classical music fans who like a little visual to go with their orchestra may enjoy this video featuring an animated graphical score of Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, Part 1: Adoration of the Earth.

  Missouri culture might be better known for glittering Branson shows, down home fiddle music and hip-hop from our state’s urban centers, but a local performance organization aims to add classical music to the list of artistic creations born in the Show-Me State.

Making music from the classical repertoire is standard fare for Simone Dinnerstein.

If a classical musician wishes to replicate a sound from a specific period then the musician needs a period instrument. KBIA's Trevor Harris recently interviewed Vienna-based pianist Rudolf Buchbinder.