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Happy Friday!

Aaron Copland standing in front of a mural of a sink and toilet.

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Another Mozart classic in honor of his birthday. That one time when he robbed a dude at the ATM!

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AWESOME

Pro-tip: the folks at NPR Classical always turn me onto the best music, like David Bowie narrating Peter and the Wolf. 

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Richard Strauss sitting alone on a bench in the snow.

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Hazel Scott was not only a gifted pianist and singer — a child musical prodigy who at only eight years old was given a scholarship from the Juilliard School of Music to be privately tutored — she was also the first woman of color to have her own TV show (1950), and was an outspoken advocate for civil rights throughout her life…

Above, watch Hazel Scott play Black and White on two grand pianos in the 1943 Mae West film, The Heat’s On. There’s also a trumpet-playing puppet.

Watch the video…

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The sound of climate change from the Amazon to the Arctic from Ensia on Vimeo.

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It’s mathematically impossible to tune a piano. Here’s why.

Have you ever wondered why it’s mathematically impossible to perfectly piano a tuna?

Oh sorry…

Have you ever wondered why it’s mathematically impossible to perfectly tune a piano?

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Judging by this photo, Beethoven was all like, “I ain’t got TIME for that”

Beethoven: No Clef Game, Do Not Care

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Benjamin Britten + Peter Pears + 2 recorders = THIS

Benjamin Britten playing the recorder with Peter Pears. 

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On learning an instrument as an adult and why you should GO FOR IT.

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Leonard Bernstein and a koala. More of that, please.

Happy birthday to Philharmonic Laureate Conductor Leonard Bernstein. Formerly the Philharmonic’s Music Director, Bernstein would be 97 today. And this koala is having none of it. #koala #bernstein #birthday (at Lincoln Center)

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On the genius of Mozart. Lou Kosma of the Mostly Mozart Orchestra.

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If you haven’t heard the “O Fortuna” misheard lyrics yet, you gotta get on that. Hilarious! 

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 The first-ever 3D-printed violin. This is super cool! Endless possibilities.

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Um, did you guys know that Brian Eno wrote the Microsoft music??

brian eno - windows 95 start up

The idea came up at the time when I was completely bereft of ideas. I’d been working on my own music for a while and was quite lost, actually. And I really appreciated someone coming along and saying, “Here’s a specific problem – solve it.”

The thing from the agency said, “We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah- blah, da-da-da, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional,” this whole list of adjectives, and then at the bottom it said “and it must be 3 ¼ seconds long.”

I thought this was so funny and an amazing thought to actually try to make a little piece of music. It’s like making a tiny little jewel.

In fact, I made 84 pieces. I got completely into this world of tiny, tiny little pieces of music. I was so sensitive to microseconds at the end of this that it really broke a logjam in my own work. Then when I’d finished that and I went back to working with pieces that were like three minutes long, it seemed like oceans of time.

Q and A with Brian Eno

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John Philip Sousa is on the must-have list for July 4th! This podcast episode is full of March King trivia.

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LOL! So true. The “sporting event version” of the Star Spangled Banner.

Accurate