Most artists and musicians are out of work right now and I’m no different. When we reached day 70 of “15 Days to Stop the Spread of Coronavirus,” I knew I would need to find a steady source of income, so I started a part-time job at a “major home improvement store” nea...

Bach Invention

    by Jane Tyson Clement (1917-2000)

If I could live as finished as this phrase, no note too strong;

each cadence purposed, clear,

the logic of the changing harmony building and breaking to a major chord

strangely at home within a minor web of music; i...

I have a ringing in my ears. 

It’s not a pitch, or static white noise, it’s just there. I can push aside the distracting thoughts of the day—the strange memories of things I've done or, the things I have left undone, but after that clutter is gone, it's still just there...

Stephen Tavani, Assistant Concertmaster, Cleveland Orchestra

I recorded Johann Sebastian Bach's "Chaconne" for solo violin for the Good Friday service at my church.

    This is a piece of music which has been a kind of Mount Everest for me personally, which I had started...

THE PURPOSE OF LIFE IN ALL SITUATIONS: TO GLORIFY GOD

At the beginning of 2020, Australia’s native species were being devastated by wildfires and the initial coronavirus outbreak in China had just hit the news. At my orchestra’s first rehearsal for the season, the condu...

A PIANIST'S VISIONS OF CHRIST

I’ve always had performance anxiety. It’s been a source of frustration, but somehow I became a career musician anyway. Around 2013, I began to have some very unusual but completely clear visions from God while performing at the MasterWorks...

The year 2020 has wrought radical change. We performers are truly in the midst, wondering what our world “after-the-pandemic” will look like. I love how artists from around the world are working together in virtual ways to share hope, beauty, and comfort to vast audien...

NORMAL SERVICE INTERRUPTED!

As I write to you from southern England the sun is shining and a gentle breeze wafts across a blue sky, and I am having coffee in my garden rather than rehearsing Debussy ‘Images’.  I have been the principal bassist with the Bournemouth Symph...

THE GREAT WORK OF GRATITUDE

Musicians, staff, and crew alike should never contemplate deep things, much less the state of their anxiety, during what we call “tech week” in the opera industry. Usually this entails several long rehearsals in a row for everyone. Sometimes...

COLORS SEEMED BRIGHTER

Music has been a part of my life since a very young age. In kindergarten, teachers discovered some musical talent in me and I started study on the piano sometime in the first grade. I started the bassoon in the 4th grade. In the midst of all that...