Beautiful Music

The Berkeley Festival and Exhibition, along with Early Music America, host an event called the YOUNG PERFORMERS FESTIVAL & EMERGING ARTIST SHOWCASE. The Young Performers Festival’s mission is to bring together, ” … collegiate and pre-college early-music ensembles throughout North America to perform at leading early-music festivals in the United States.” and the Emerging Artist […]

Meet The Cramer Quartet: violinists Jessica Park and Chiara Fasani Stauffer, violist Keats Dieffenbach, and cellist Shirley Hunt. The award-winning musicians named their ensemble after Wilhelm Cramer, ” … a brilliant violinist who enjoyed a multifaceted career as London’s first major string quartet leader. Cramer is credited with popularizing a late 18th century violin bow

The talented musician Byron Schenkman has a compelling series of concerts called BYRON SCHENKMAN & FRIENDS. (If you haven’t already subscribed, I highly recommend it!) I love featuring these concerts on this Beautiful Music blog because the performers are all so gifted, and the programs are so imaginative. Today’s Beautiful Music offering — a program

Yesterday’s Beautiful Music featured the sole known surviving composition by Caterina Giani. Today’s Beautiful Music was composed by her husband, Massimiliano Neri. Abendmusicken Basel presented his Sonata decimaquarta à 12 in performance from July 12, 2015. As you listen to this lovely music, you can also look at these wonderful period instruments!    

Caterina Giani was a Venetian musician who lived from approximately 1630 until sometime after 1673. There is just one known surviving composition by her, and it’s today’s Beautiful Music. LIEBSTER JESU, TRAUTES LEBEN is a motet for solo voice and strings. This performance by soprano Arianna Aerie with Musicke’s Cordes was part of Early Music

Welcome to Summer! Today is the day of the Summer solstice, and my Beautiful Music offering is the iconic Summer Concerto by Antonio Vivaldi. Norwegian violinist Mari Samuelsen is the soloist with Trondheim Soloists in this live concert recording.  

Today’s Beautiful Music features the marvelous countertenor Reginald Mobley. This is a virtual recital for singers in a choral education program for 6 Chicago public high schools. The “Strong Voices” program featured Reginald Mobley with Stephen Alltop performing a wide variety of music: spirituals, selections by Henry Purcell and George Frideric Handel, and music by

Today’s Beautiful Music is a collaboration between the Rose Ensemble and Piffaro Renaissance Band — a richly textured interplay of voices and ancient instruments. This is from a 2012 concert program called Spain in the New World” at Nativity of our Lord Catholic Church, St. Paul, Minnesota. This particular selection from the program is a

Harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani provides today’s Beautiful Music! From a concert recording in November 2020, Esfahani plays Johann Sebastian Bach’s Toccata in D BWV 912. You can also use the link below to learn more about the talented musician who is making such a splash in the world of harpsichord playing! Biography  

I love that technology allows us to (virtually) attend concerts all over the world from the comfort of home. Today’s Beautiful Music is a full concert by Andrew Appel and his Four Nations Ensemble at the Church of the Heavenly Rest in NYC on January 20, 2022. They’re playing music by Alessandro Stradella, Arcangelo Corelli,