The Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphonies' elite ensemble, Symphony, leaves Minnesota this week for an 11-day trip to Poland, Hungary and Germany. While concerts are the musical high point of the tour, they are far from being the only important activity on the agenda.
You don't need carry-on luggage, an airline ticket or a music degree to play the three grand pianos at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. But you likely will need security clearance and a background check to play one of them.
Beethoven's Violin Concerto is a poetic summit of the repertoire, widely considered to be the greatest violin concerto ever written. Listen to violinist Augustin Hadelich perform it at 8 p.m. Friday with the Minnesota Orchestra, live on Classical MPR.
In an unassuming Minneapolis storefront, the newly started Resonance Box aims to expand and challenge how we listen to the world around us. Founder Aida Shahghasemi explains how her roots in Persian music drive her efforts.
Kathy Saltzman Romey, artistic director of the Minnesota Chorale, has been preparing her singers since March to perform 'Belshazzar's Feast,' one of the most difficult works in the choral symphonic repertoire. Hear it live Friday night with the Minnesota Orchestra and conductor Andrew Litton on Classical MPR.
Australian composer Rae Howell came to Minnesota to make some solo records but became fascinated by backyard beehives. Now she and local filmmaker Deacon Warner have combined her music and his film to create 'Bee-Sharp Honeybee,' a documentary and classical work based on the sounds of bees.
With his band Paris 1919, Twin Cities composer and music man Chris Strouth breaks new artistic territory with a 'middle-aged symphony to God' at this weekend's Art-A-Whirl celebrations in northeast Minneapolis. The unusual venue? The Church of St. Boniface.
The artists behind the Moving Company have been drawn to classical music for a while. That's no more evident than in 'Speechless,' their first production to rely solely on music and movement in place of words.
A young Leonard Bernstein seemed all set in 1940 to become the assistant conductor of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, the forerunner of today's Minnesota Orchestra. But then he ran into insurmountable 'difficulties' with those plans.
'As a musician, you get very few opportunities,' composer Paul Cantrell says. That's why he emcees Composer Nights, a monthly gathering in St. Paul where Minnesota music makers can finally have their works heard.
