TSO & Rob Kapilow's What Makes it Great?

Last night I went to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra's performance of Mozart's Jupiter Symphony. They were conducted by Rob Kapilow. It was my second time going to one of his "What Makes it Great?" performances. (Last year I got to see them do "Spring" and "Summer" from Vivaldi's Four Seasons with Jennifer Koh.)

Rob Kapilow breaks the music down so that even my Mom can understand the music!

For Mozart's Jupiter Symphony he showed us how simple isn't always simple and how doing things slightly different can make a big difference.

We bought his book "What Makes It Great: Short Masterpieces, Great Composers"
He talks about masterpieces by composers like Bach, Handel, Schumann and Tchaikovsky. There is a website that has clips of what he's talking about in the book. We already downloaded the clips and I can't wait to read it and learn more about some of my favourite pieces of music.



The best part of the night was getting to meet him. He doesn't know it, but he's one of my musical heroes!

If you can't make it to one of Rob Kapilow's concerts you can hear him talk about "Summertime" by George Gershwin on NPR
http://www.npr.org/2008/10/23/95761927/a-languid-look-back-to-gershwins-summertime
There are links to other pieces as well, but Summertime is one of my favourites.

Here's a link to his website:
http://www.robkapilow.com/index.shtml

Horrible Histories Big Prom Party 2011

I love "Horrible Histories". It comes on on BBC Kids here. I got to see the Proms special on youtube.
http://youtu.be/mWn9jJ9ptvY

It was great!

Nick Collon conducted the Aurora Orchestra and the cast of Horrible Histories performed with them.

They talked about Beethoven and Mozart and they argued over who was the greatest composer of all time. They also talked about Lully's 'stupid death' and gave a brief history of the orchestra! They even played some historical instruments like the lyre, serpent, rackett, crumhorn and the sackbutt.

I knew most of the songs but I looked up some. 

They played: 

• Overture from "The Marriage of Figaro" by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss
• Danse Macabre Op. 40 by Camille Saint-Saens
• Romeo avenging Mercutio's death from Romeo and Juliet by Sergei Prokofiev
• March to the Scaffold by Hector Berlioz
• Royal Fireworks Music by George Frideric Handel
• Marche pour la ceremonie des Turcs by Jean-Baptiste Lully
• Wedding March by Felix Mendelssohn
• Ride of the Valkyries by Richard Wagner

They also had some really cool songs by the cast of Horrible Histories like:

• The 4 Georges
• Richard III
• Charles II
• George IV 
• Cleopatra

My favourite HH song is Henry VIII's song about his wives. "Divorced, beheaded and died. Divorced, beheaded, survived". I still can't believe three of his wives were named Catherine. 

(One interesting thing is that Jean-Baptiste Lully was Louis XIV's composer. Louis XIV built the Chateau de Versailles. I visited Versailles when I was in France in May.) 

Getting to Know the World's Greatest Composers - Beethoven

Mom asked me to do a book report for English class but I really don't want to do it.
I am going to do it here (online) instead because I can give links to some music.

Title: Getting to Know the World's Greatest Composers - Ludwig van Beethoven
Author: Mike Venezia

The book is a biography of Ludwig van Beethoven who was born in 1770 in Bonn, Germany. 

Beethoven was a composer and his music was different from the cheerful, classical music that people listened to at the time. He grew up in Europe when things were changing. Everybody now thought that they were equally important even if they weren't born rich. It was the time of the French Revolution.

He wrote the Revolutionary Symphony in honour of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Here is a link to the first movement on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sBABTZuL44

Beethoven was 4 years old when he started learning music but he had to stand on a stool to reach the keys. His Dad would work him very hard. He would hit his knuckles when he made a mistake.


I think the most  interesting fact about Beethoven is that he was deaf and still composed when he was older. He was deaf when he composed the Ninth Symphony.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3217H8JppI

Beethoven was crabby and unfriendly. But I think it's because he couldn't hear people very well. He needed an 'ear trumpet' to hear sounds.



I would recommend this book to any young person interested in Beethoven's life. I liked the comics inside which made the book more interesting. I would also recommend listening to the songs that they mention in the book. You can find a lot of them on youtube.

TSO's Pictures at an Exhibition

Last night we went to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra's Pictures at an Exhibition. It was great!
The first song they played was a new work called Shenanigan by Kati Agocs. She was in the audience and she talked a little about it before they played it. I liked it!

I liked watching Joyce Yang play the piano with the orchestra. She played Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor by Rachmaninoff with the orchestra and she also played a piece by Chopin that wasn't in the program. I paid close attention to her hands. It was amazing! She bounced with energy when she performed! I really want to see her perform again.

I loved Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky. I especially liked Tuileries and the Polish Oxcart.

I really wish I had a recording of the whole concert! Everything was so good.

We stayed for the after concert chat. I found out that Joyce Yang started piano at 4 years old, just like me! Can you imagine she practices for 6 hours a day!

I got to meet her after the concert and Mom took a picture of us.