Recently I came across a paper I wrote sixteen years ago, during the second year of my doctoral studies. The topic was Dmitri Shostakovich and the political pressures surrounding his symphonic works in the Soviet Union. At the time, it…

When I was about twenty-one, I had an experience with a Bernard Fendt cello that I’ve never entirely forgotten.

At the time, my teacher was helping a middleman broker sell instruments. As I remember it, the story was that the…

Again and again, when a new student begins lessons, I hear some version of the same sentence from parents: “We are not looking for our child to major in music.”

My response, at least inwardly, is always the same: your…

As we plan a program and prepare to walk on stage, our primary responsibility is to serve our audience. A musician without an audience is like a restaurant without customers.

If you have spoken with me for any length of…

Cello ensembles sometimes feel like a modern invention. In recent decades they have become common in conservatories, summer festivals, and professional touring groups. Thousands of arrangements and original works now exist for groups of cellos, ranging from Renaissance transcriptions to…

I recently began preparing a new edition of the B-flat Cello Concerto usually attributed to Michael Haydn. I now have an almost publishable score with critical notes, prepared directly from the surviving manuscript parts.

After studying the source closely, I…

We often speak about “popular music,” “folk music,” and “classical music” as though they belong to completely separate worlds. In reality, the boundaries between them have never been stable. Throughout history, composers have continually drawn on dance traditions, folk materials…

When I was eighteen, I decided to major in cello.

I knew I wanted to be a commuting student, so I chose Wayne State University. I was excited to study with a teacher there and eager to begin what felt…

My first introduction to Servais was an old copy of Souvenir de Spa that I bought when I was around eighteen, I believe at an estate sale.

It is the Peters edition, no. 2236, plate 8345, edited by Friedrich Grützmacher…

Ukraine’s musical heritage offers a rich source of inspiration for performers, composers, and arrangers. For cellists in particular, this repertoire remains surprisingly underexplored. Folk melodies, lyrical salon pieces, sacred chant traditions, and late Romantic compositions from the region all adapt…

The cello world has no shortage of great players.

That is not the problem.

The level of playing today is astonishing. Young cellists can play pieces that would have terrified entire studios a few generations ago. Competitions are full of…

Over the past decade, I’ve noticed a steady increase in pedagogical content circulating in online cello communities. Videos, short lessons, practice tips, technique demonstrations, and teaching philosophies appear daily across platforms. Much of this material is thoughtful, widely shared, and…

Over time, I have noticed how easily we encourage one another to think of jobs as interchangeable, especially when looking from the outside.

Someone loses a position and immediately hears a familiar refrain: Why not just do something adjacent? Surely…

Early in our careers, it is natural to think, “If I were in charge, I would do things differently.”

A first-year music major may feel ready for a major audition. A new faculty member may feel confident about how they…

From time to time, while editing old scores or preparing repertoire from the nineteenth century, I find myself wondering what the great cellists of the past might say if they could address players today.

We often encounter them only through…

Gaspar Cassadó: Improvisation on The Blue Danube by Johann Strauss II
Yuriy Leonovich, cello
Kristin Leonovich, piano

Gaspar Cassadó composed and arranged a remarkable amount of music for the cello, but many of his works remain almost entirely unknown outside…

Teaching music produces an interesting side effect. Over time, certain short remarks begin to appear in lessons again and again. They are rarely planned. Most of them arise in the middle of a rehearsal or practice discussion when a musical…

Our cooking photos sometimes remind me of a familiar type of concert photograph: a violinist playing very high on the fingerboard with an intensely concentrated expression. The image is impressive. The posture is dramatic, the bow arm is extended, and…

One common narrative in music history claims that major stylistic change occurred roughly once every hundred years before the twentieth century, whereas the twentieth century brought dramatic shifts with each passing decade. There is some truth to this idea, particularly…

Recently, I have been visiting several high schools and working with student orchestras. Sitting in those rehearsals reminded me of something that is easy to forget if you spend most of your time in one corner of the musical world.

…

Spend enough time around classical music discourse, and you will eventually encounter a familiar divide.

On one side stands the “art song.” Elevated. Composed. Serious.
On the other stands the “popular song.” Commercial. Ephemeral. Mass produced.

The boundary often feels…

I have loved Henryk Wieniawski’s music for a long time. His music has fire, elegance, lyricism, and a kind of theatrical brilliance that immediately appeals to string players. Even when the writing is dazzlingly virtuosic, there is usually a singing…

If you have ever opened a modern scholarly edition of a concerto or chamber work, you may have noticed something curious.

Behind the cleanly engraved score often sits a critical commentary. Sometimes it runs a few pages. Sometimes it runs…

Music does not usually begin in the classroom. It begins in use: in churches, theaters, homes, streets, courts, clubs, ceremonies, and communities; in imitation, repetition, apprenticeship, and shared habit. People make music long before they theorize it. Only later do…