It is no secret that the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók was greatly influenced by traditional folk and dance music of Eastern Europe and surround- ing regions. To explore the direct effects of a specific ethnic demographic of folk music on specific works, however, still holds the potential to yield fresh insight. Though Bartók is perhaps mo...

 In the nineteenth century, classical music was in its infancy in the United States and uniquely American musical voices were few and far between. Although there were some notable exceptions—such as pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk—most American musicians flocked to Europe "only to return with pale imitations ...

(S5) Pacific Preludes by Christopher Norton, CD recorded by Iain Farrington Christopher Norton is well known for his contemporary works in jazz, pop, Latin rhythms, and even musicals. His Pacific Preludes Collection is an interesting set of fourteen pieces based on folk melodies from countries bordering the Pacific Ocean: the United States, the Phi...

(S3) From Sight to Sound: 6 Original PIano Solos, by Randall Hartsell.  Randall Hartsell composed From Sight to Sound to express the "interconnectedness of nature and our lives," and this collection contains six reflective pieces characterized by melodic simplicity and harmonic richness. The collection capitalizes on the piano's capacity for c...

Time certainly flies when you're having fun. I realized this year that my first published arrangement was copyrighted in 1984. Math was never one of my strongest subjects, but I think that means I've been at this for more than thirty years. That adds up to a lot of staccatos, phrase marks, altered chords, and double bars. It has been a privilege to...

What exactly is a "kamarinskaya"? (The word is pronounced with an accent on the second syllable—kaMArinskaya.) In his Album for the Young, Tchaikovsky* gives each piece both a Russian and a French title. In French, he identifies his Kamarinskaya as a Chanson populaire—a folk song. But the kamarinskaya is certainly not a "song" (just try to sing it!...