The image above is Vincent van Gogh's 'Poplars near Nuenen'. Our 8sw Composer Competition winner Will Jefferies was inspired by this painting. The New York Times, as well as my art colleagues at BMCC suggest you just look at this (and other) painting(s) for 10 minutes. Really look at it -- see it. Don't do…

Our Fall season is going to open soon. This year, we have three community concerts, leading up to our annual Fall, Pre-Thanksgiving concert in Manhattan. This year we return to St. John’s in the Village. After our concert last November, we sent out a survey to those that attended, and were happy to see that…

Our Fall season features works by four fabulous living composers: Ingrid Stölzel, Mark Winges, Edmund Cionek, and our 8SW 2026 Competition winner Will Jefferies. Suzanne has interviewed most of them, with an interview with Will coming soon. Please do read them — Matt says they are the best thing on the website and that is…

We are well into rehearsing for our Fall concerts. Occasionally we are asked how we prepare - how often do we rehearse, do we ever fight, what tools or devices might we use to facilitate our work. Like most musicians we always have a metronome close by. Depending on when and where we are working…

We are well into rehearsals for our Fall concerts. Next week, I will write a bit about what is upcoming, but this week I will recommend that you visit the Met Museum's Musical Bodies Exhibit. It's open til the end of September. Many interesting instruments (where else can you see a penis whistle -- just…

Breaks over! Time for some Googly-Moogly music. We all had a little rest, but time to start rehearsing our Fall Program - "Time Slightly Unstuck", featuring music by the every crafty Mark Winges, our competition winner William Jefferies, the fabulous Ingrid Stölzel, French composer Antoine Taudou and the return of those very very bad robots,…

We were on a short break last week, and I forgot to blog. But we are all in the city now and despite the heat, we rehearsed yesterday. One more coming before we take a slightly more extended break. Next week, a bit more on our upcoming season, but for today, a few photos. Enjoy.…

Matt and I head to Maine today, so brief trio hiatus. But before we hit the road - dinner! And who is there? 8SW Competition winner #1 Jorge Amado. He's on his way to the National Orchestra Institute in DC, but made a detour to spend a week with Henry the cat. Even though it…

Summer rehearsals — noise versus heat? Today it is hot - going to be 89. Our regular rehearsal space has no AC - but we have fans and windows. Of course the windows face on to a noisy midtown Manhattan avenue, making it hard to hear and the fans distort pitch. But without — really…

I promised myself I was going to write a blog every Friday. Well Friday came and went and no blog! Only week 2 in and I am already off schedule. So today's blog is very short, as I have a big pile of music on my stand. One of the piece in that pile is…

A website is like a house. Houses need upkeep. You can clean them, paint the walls, and change the light bulbs on a regular basis and all looks good. But eventually you will need a new roof. Or perhaps, hidden behind the walls where you cannot see, there’s an issue with the pipes. Or you…

We are very excited to announce the winners of our 2024 8SW Composer Competition. This is our fourth cycle of the 8SW Composer Competition, which started in 2018. Why hold a competition? A fairly simple answer — we believe in the art of chamber music. It is a special genre of music that involves communication…

They are back — the summer PopUP! We are always excited to present these concerts, especially this summer, when we will play at such a great space. What is a PopUP!? Good question.The PopUP!s are a chance for us to present new works (or at least works new to us) to an audience and get…

I gave my now remote college classes a short writing assignment. It was all about what music they are listening to in this time of stress.  I decided I would post a contribute too, and so I wrote this: It’s been about a little over a week since the college closed and moved to remote…

And now, massively overdue, is the next installment of my Fall recap!  I thought I should get it posted before we got to the summer. To Cuba!  On Nov. 1st, we packed our bags and headed to JFK for an early morning flight.  Joining us on this second sojourn to Havana was composer Pamela Sklar…

The Washington Post recently wrote an editorial saying the Summer is over-rated. It’s possible that’s true. What is summer really? - A time when it’s really hot!! For many of us, summer is when we envision getting a lot done. We make lists and once made, they are hard to escape. The “list” is that…