What is more popular than the Suzuki Method? This rhetorical question is meant to make you think about the influence of the Suzuki Method on generations of musicians for the last half-century. The issue of composer and title attribution is…

Review: Prokofiev Cello Sonata Op. 119 (Hans Sikorski 2001 revised edition) 

Prokofiev's Cello Sonata, Op. 119 is a masterpiece cellists are lucky to have in our repertoire. It comes from Prokofiev's collaboration with cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. Other cello works of…

Shostakovich's Cello Sonata, Op. 40 turned 86 years old this year. This work is a staple of most professionals' and advanced students' repertoires. This position is well-deserved. The cello sonata very much reflects the style of Shostakovich's Symphonies Nos. 4…

On July 20, I will be releasing my first studio album called Classical Sonatas for Two Cellos, Volume 1. The album includes 7 sonatas by Jean-Baptiste Bréval and 1 sonata by Bernhard Romberg. I'm dedicating this album to my…

New Publication Newsletter: May 2020

We have 6 new editions out this month. As many of us are making more music at home, we hope to bring brightness and a gift of music to our lives.

Arensky -…

Gaspar Cassadó has been my favorite cellist-composer for half of my life now. His music provides variety and imagination. His arrangements are especially well-crafted. As someone who arranges music almost daily, I look up to Cassadó for inspiration. Although the…

For this Installment of "Critical Notes Series," I would like to introduce my newest, long-awaited orchestration of Klengel's Concertino No. 1 for cello and orchestra. Klengel never orchestrated this work, leaving it for cello and piano, as with the other…

What an amazing work! Hearing just the first and last bars of the piece should inspire the listener to want to hear the entire concerto. The only thing standing in the way of its popularity is the lack of a…

I am starting a new series to give insight into common mistakes found in editions, as well as to point out common performance practices of works for cello. Because there is so much information written on the subject concerning works…

For over a decade, I've been listening to my own practicing and recording sessions. I've covered the mics, recorders, and other gear in previous posts. In this post, I would like to cover the output source, specifically the headphones.

My…

When talking about Hungarian cello music, Zoltán Kodály and György Ligeti come up immediately, and rightfully so. These two composers built monumental and lasting careers, even postmortem. Sándor (Alexander) Jemnitz (1890-1963) was a famous composer and critic of Kodály's generation…

At one point a major force in the Soviet musical world, cellist-composer Victoria Yagling (1946-2011) is completely forgotten by the general public of the Russian-speaking vestige of the USSR. Yagling came from a family of award-winning artists and academics. Her…