All-Beethoven Program Presents Composer’s Symphony No. 7, and the Piano Concerto No. 4 with Hungarian Virtuoso Petra Somlai on Fortepiano ..read more

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) was a famous musician and composer in his own day, and his music has survived over 300 years to remain popular today. He was the child of a professional musician and his musical career began with him performing as a substitute Violinist in the professional orchestra for St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice, Italy. At age 15, he began studying for the priesthood, and he was ordained as a Catholic Priest in 1703. That same year he was appointed both chaplain and violin teacher for the Ospedale della Pietà, which was an orphanage for abandoned children. However, due to poo ..read more

Dear Teachers & Friends, As we approach the end of the 2023-2024 school year and gear up for summer, I wanted to take a look at the famous composer, Robert Schumann. He was born on June 8, 1810, and was also the father of eight children. He is a great composer for children to learn about, as he wrote quite a bit of music specifically for children to learn or appreciate. I have provided a link to sheet music for one of his piano pedagogy pieces, Trällerliedchen, the “Humming Song,” Op. 68, No. 3. Teachers can also check out a reading and worksheet resource for students by CLICKING ..read more

American Classical Orchestra Announces 2024-25 Season CELEBRATING ITS 40th ANNIVERSARY WITH THREE ORCHESTRAL CONCERTS AT LINCOLN CENTER’S ALICE TULLY HALL SEPTEMBER 18, 2024 – MAY 7, 2025 Orchestral Highlights Include an All-Beethoven Opening Night, Bach’s St. John Passion with the ACO Chorus, and a “Mostly” Mozart Concert Featured Soloists Include Soprano Kristen Hahn, Countertenor Reginald Mobley, Tenor Jacob Perry, Fortepianist Petra Somlai, and Bassoonist Andrew Schwartz Three Chamber Music Concerts will be Performed at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, the University Club of New York ..read more

Most of us know that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was probably the greatest musical prodigy that the world has ever known. Of course he is not the only one! In fact there is a wikipedia page dedicated to listing the names of musical prodigies including, Frederic Chopin, Franz Liszt, and the modern-day pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim. In this week’s Classical Music for Kids Newsletter, I share some fun facts about Mozart as a child, and I provide a musical score for piano music that he wrote as an 8-year old child while on tour in London. The Mozart Family on Tour W.A.Mozart as a Yo ..read more

While J.S. Bach was surely the composer most adept at weaving mathematical concepts into his music, he was neither the first nor the last. In ancient Greece, Pythagoras used numbers and geographic patterns to express connections between math and music in the relationship between intervals and ratio-based harmonies between tones. We can only speculate on how composers actually used this knowledge in the centuries before written manuscripts. But today’s scientists have identified math-informed concepts in the music of (among others) Bach, Mozart, Chopin, and Schubert. It is not unusual at math c ..read more

We at here at Classical Music for Kids wanted to take a moment to share an additional perspective of how classical music education is transforming the lives of children in New York City. Dr. York sat down with Jessica Garand, Founder & Executive Director of the Opportunity Music Project, to learn about her organization. We hope music lovers everywhere will be inspired by the highlights of our conversation! Music as a Gateway to the World Jessica Garand grew up below the poverty line in a rural community outside of Montreal, Canada. Through the generosity of her grandmother, Jessica and her ..read more

January is National Eyecare Month—a reminder that until recently untreatable eye conditions could curtail productivity at any stage of life; and disastrous attempts at surgical remedies would more often than not bring life to an end. Two such surgeries surely led to the decline and death of J.S. Bach, the composer whose towering masterpiece the ACO will be performing on March 7 at Alice Tully Hall. In 1749, when Johann Sebastian Bach was completing his B Minor Mass (buy tickets to it below), cataracts had rendered the sixty-four-year-old blind or very nearly so. The following year, at the ..read more

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) was a Baroque virtuoso violinist who began his musical career under the tutelage of his father, Giovanni Baptista, a professional violinist in the orchestra of the Basilica of San Marco in Venice. At the age of 18, Antonio made his musical debut as a supernumerary violinist for the orchestra alongside his father. In addition to music, Vivaldi was also ordained as a priest. Unfortunately, he was forced to give up his priestly duties due to chronic respiratory illness. Consequently, Vivaldi began his relationship as a musician with the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice ..read more

Tom on Emerging Virtuosos April 10, 2020 The rise of the female virtuoso in the 21st century Shortly after the ACO parent organization, the Fairfield Orchestra, started to give concerts in 1981, I began to hear comments from audience members, who had noted a larger number of women than men in our orchestra. Indeed, the ratio of female to male musicians at the time was as high as 8 to 2. It’s a pattern that has continued over the years. And while for some it has been a curiosity, for me it is not. I have always engaged musicians solely on the basis of merit in a field that, like so many ..read more