33 REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE A History of Protest Songs, From Billie Holiday to Green Day

33 REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE:  A History of Protest Songs, From Billie Holiday to Green Day has been ordered for the Conservatory Library collection.  Until it arrives, read the review!

New York Times Review:

“It is a short walk,” Vladimir Nabokov said, speaking of writers and critics, “from the hallelujah to the hoot.” It’s an especially short walk if you’re a pop singer who’s written a less-than-electric protest song. Think of Michael Jackson and “Earth Song,” or 4 Non Blondes and “What’s Up,” or Sting and “Russians.” Each of them, along with “We Are the World,” will be in heavy rotation on the Pandora channel in hell. 


The lively British rock critic Dorian Lynskey — he writes for The Guardian, among other publications — spends some time in his new book, “33 Revolutions Per Minute,” chewing over why most protest songs are heaped with scorn. They can be “didactic, crass or plain boring,” he writes. Those who warble them onstage can seem “shrill or annoying or egotistical.”  Read More

Madame White Snake by Zhou Long awarded 2011 Pulitzer Prize

Madame White Snake by Zhou Long has been awarded the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in Music. Madame White Snake, which premiered on February 26, 2010, by the Boston Opera at the Cutler Majestic Theatre, was described by the jury as "a deeply expressive opera that draws on a Chinese folk tale to blend the musical traditions of the East and the West."  Read More

Ella Fitzgerald... SCAT like a scat cat

June 22, 1969 jazz vocalist Ella Fitzgerald with accompaniment by Ed Thigpen on drums, Frank de la Rosa on bass, and Tommy Flanagan on piano.  Enjoy!

[brought to you by Joe Hauer]

Click to Play: A Workshop on Streamed Video Resources in the Con Library

Click to Play: A Workshop on Streamed Video Resources in the Con Library

Featuring clips of a conversation with Steve Reich; African Cross Rhythms; Louis Armstrong live in Australia; and the 2009 Glyndebourne production of The Fairy Queen.


Wednesday, April 20th 11-11:45 or 3-3:45
Conservatory Library Electronic Classroom

CSO Music Director Riccardo Muti on Life, “the accident,” and Mortality

Even from across the hall, Riccardo Muti is beaming. He has just completed his first Chicago Symphony Orchestra rehearsal since what Muti himself has come to call “the accident,” and players and music director alike are virtually euphoric.

CSO president Deborah Rutter looks the happiest I have seen her since Muti arrived here last fall. One longtime player passing by whispers to me, “We are on cloud nine.” If things kept going the way they were before Muti, he adds, “this orchestra would have been in ruins.” Concertmaster Robert Chen walks by flashing an ear-to-ear smile.

Muti is childlike and playful enough that he even warmly greets me, a reporter, by placing his hands on my cheeks and patting them much as Neapolitans do to young children. Read More

Bach’s ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring’ As Played by a Wooden Staircase

Watch this three-minute ad for a Japanese cell phone, shot in the woods near Kyushu, Japan. According to the designer, no additional music was added — what you hear is just the sound of a ball, a long wooden xylophone, and gravity.

Carrot Pan-flute "Moon On The Ruined Castle"

This is quite amazing and amusing - enjoy!!  Watch here
The musician has several vegetable instrument videos on YouTube, including A Carrot Ocarina Trio:Lightly Row
 and Mini Pumpkin Ocarina:Klaviersonate Nr.11 A-dur K.331

Breaking news: Puccini's long-lost "Australian" opera surfaces

The monumental discovery of an unfinished score reveals a composer fascinated with the exoticism of the land down under.

The manuscript of a previously unknown, incomplete opera has been authenticated as the work of Giacomo Puccini, Italian music scholars announced yesterday. And even more startling: it’s set in Australia.

La Condannata, meaning "The Condemned One" or "The Convict", has been unearthed more than a century after it was penned. Written in the composer's hand, the score was found sewn into the original upholstery of an item of furniture at the Museo Villa Puccini in Torre del Lago, the picturesque town where the maestro spent his days from 1891 onwards. The remarkable discovery was made when the seating upholstery was being restored last month.  Read more