Suzanne Bona

Outstanding, multi-talented musician Michael Unger provides today’s Beautiful Music. The gifted organist is featured playing Zwei Stücke from Fünf Stücke, Op.46, Nos. 2-3 by 19th c. German-Jewish composer Louis Lewandowski. This performance took place in July 2021 at the historic Isaac M. Wise Temple in Cincinnati, OH. There’s a link below to Michael Unger’s YouTube […]

On April 11, 1727, Johann Sebastian Bach’s ST MATTHEW PASSION was performed for the first time. It was at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig Germany. Today’s Beautiful Music is a complete performance of Bach’s monumental work from the 2022 BACHFEST in Leipzig. The performance was livestreamed on Jun 17, 2022 from that same St. Thomas

Joan Szymko is a composer and conductor who specializes in choral music. The Chicago-born musician states on her website (see link below): “My goal is to compose music that invites the audience in while challenging the notion that accessibility and musical integrity are incompatible concepts. I have composed choral music to be performed with actors, poets, Taiko drummers,

Today’s Beautiful Music is a moment of gentle loveliness. The members of La Nébuleuse (Manon Papasergio, Clémence Niclas, Imanol Iraola, and Gabriel Rignol) perform Claudio Monteverdi’s secular madrigal Non č di gentil core. Published in 1619, the madrigal is a love song with lyrics by Francesca degli Atti. Use the link below to learn more

Today a total eclipse will pass over North America and, depending on where you live, you may be able to see it. There’s a NASA link below with more information about today’s eclipse. And today’s Beautiful Music is tailor-made by George Frideric Handel — it’s the aria TOTAL ECLIPSE, NO SUN, NO MOON from the

Today’s Beautiful Music is great fun! It features music by Pauline Viardot-García, a French mezzo-soprano and composer of Spanish descent, who lived from 1821-1910. She composed dozens of songs, and she was also known for her brilliant arrangements of music by other composers. These include creating vocal duets with piano of some of Johannes Brahms’

A big story recently featured Sawney Freeman, a once-enslaved man who was a talented musician. Sawney Freeman is believed to have been the first published Black composer in America. His compositions were stored in Trinity College’s Watkinson Library for centuries, and only recently re-explored. Today’s Beautiful Music is a pair of articles about Sawney Freeman.

Cellist Klaus Mäkelä was born into a family of musicians and performers, and started conducting at age 12. His mother is a pianist, his father is a cellist, his grandfather plays violin and viola, and his sister is a professional ballet dancer. The Helsinki native is Chief Conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic, Music Director of

Today’s Beautiful Music is a nod to William Shakespeare during Poetry Month. O MISTRESS MINE is from Shakespeare’s THE TWELFTH NIGHT, and in the play is sung by the character Feste. This is composer Amy Beach’s setting of O MISTRESS MINE, from a recital performance feature soprano Rahel Pailer and pianist Julia Pleninger.

April is National Poetry Month, an opportunity to celebrate the importance of poetry in our culture. Today’s Beautiful Music is a composition for Woodwind quintet, String quartet, Jazz trio and Orator. The fusion of music was inspired by baroque era German composer and organist Johann Sebastian Bach and American jazz saxophonist, bandleader and composer John