By: Pam DeVier Either music happens naturally or it should not happen at all. Germaine Tailleferre in an interview with the New York Times at the age of 90, May 23, 1982 Germaine Tailleferre was born Marcelle Germaine Taillefesse on April 19, 1892, in the outskirts of Paris. She showed an early affinity for music,…
By: Dave Carty The master of musical theater, Stephen Sondheim, once stated that his original ambition was to become a mathematician, and that he became a composer largely by chance. A big influence was that famed lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II (of Rodgers and Hammerstein) was a neighbor when Sondheim was a boy. When he wrote…
By: JJ Sechan From Impressionist works to Tone Poems and Serial pieces, there are a lot of nitpicky words used to describe classical music, and today we dive into the nitpicky-est one, Neoclassicism. As with many 20th century musical innovations, we have Igor Stravinsky to thank for this multi-syllabic monstrosity. After attaining celebrity status with the…
By: Keith Simon American composer Charles Tomlinson Griffes lived only a short time, 35 years, but left behind a significant musical legacy. He’s recognized for blending European Impressionism with his own distinct voice while adding elements of American modernism. Griffes’s music often features beautiful harmonies, rich textures, and exotic scales, and his contributions to the…
On Tuesday, July 29 of 2025, the Colorado Springs Philharmonic officially announced the appointment of Chloé Dufresne as the new music director of our fabulous orchestra, which is entering its 99th season this year. After an international search that drew 255 applicants, the acclaimed French conductor will be stepping into her new role on Saturday,…
By: Jomar Cruz Christopher Tin is a Grammy Award-winning American composer of symphonic works, choral anthems, and video game scores. For the video game series Civilization, he composed the opening themes for the fourth, sixth, and seventh entries. Tin’s themes for each game: Baba Yetu, Sogno di Volare (Dream of Flight), and Live Gloriously respectively, are…
By: Pam DeVier For me, the work of composing is like sculpting a stone, not like transmitting the sounds of imagination or inspiration. Grażyna Bacewicz, October 23, 1958 A virtuoso violinist, pianist, and prolific composer, Grażyna Bacewicz (pronounced grah-ZHEE-nah baht-SEH-vich) rejected the romanticized idea of the composer as a passive conduit. A student of both…
By: Michael Campion When Charles Martin Loeffler died in 1935 an article in the New York Herald Tribune acknowledged his inestimable contribution to American music by saying, “There will not be another like him. No one in America has approached him for individuality of style, perfection of craftsmanship, beauty of utterance, loftiness and subtlety of…
By: Quinn Riley The year was 1914 and King George V had just announced The United Kingdom’s entrance into WWI. It was at this time, on August 4th, that English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams was on holiday at the seaside town of Margate in Kent, where he strolled along the cliffs near the English Channel…
By: Pam DeVier January 1776. Mozart turns 20 years old on the 27th and composes his Serenade No. 6 in D major, K. 239, better known as his Serenata notturna, a redundant title scribbled on the original manuscript in his father’s hand. While the United States was on the brink of declaring its independence, Mozart was…