Klaus Döring's Classical Music/Klaus Döring's Klassische Musik

  Music serves as a deeply personal emotional anchor, providing comfort, motivation, and nostalgia by acting as a soundtrack to life's key moments. It bridges generations, reduces stress, and fosters connection, acting as a form of therapy that captures memories and expresses feelings beyond words. Music is one of the most important and powerful things in my life. My life without melodies and harmonies would be totally empty. Listening to and playing different tunes helps me to de-stress, relax and it can also help to motivate me in trying times. I love listening to music while on my way to school, as I feel it helps me to prepare for the day that waits. I think it is like the memoirs to my life as it has been there throughout everything with me. When I was younger, I didn’t have the great love for musical as I do now. I mainly listened to whatever was playing in the background or what my parents were listening to. I didn’t have much of a care for musical compositions. There was so...

Women in music have occupied many roles in the art over the centuries and have been responsible for a multitude of contributions, shaping movements, genres, and trends as singers, songwriters, composers, instrumental performers, and educators, and in behind-the-scenes roles. At the same time, however, many roles in music have been closed to or not encouraged for women. There has been growing awareness of this since perhaps the 1960s, and doors have been opening. Women's music refers to music created by and directed towards women. It may explore political and social topics, influencing and impacting creativity, activism, and culture.

By Sinead Walsh ‘ EMPOWER is about turning emerging artists into industry trailblazers, not by asking them to fit into a broken system, but by building a better one alongside them’.  I feel like I’ve grown up alongside the changing conversation about women in classical music . When I was younger, the focus was on visibility. We needed to see women on programmes, in leadership positions and on stage. In many ways that visibility has improved, and there are far more initiatives, more performances, and more discussions taking place. But visibility is not the same as long term opportunity.   As I’ve moved into the profession myself, I’ve started asking a different question: what happens after the first performance? After the themed festival? After the panel discussion? That leads to a harder question: do we still need platforms like the one I run, EMPOWER: Women Changing Music?   When I look at the statistics around women’s programming in major seasons, the answer ...

  Schütz was the greatest German composer of the 17th century and the first of international stature. In 1598 Schütz was taken to Kassel, where he served as a choirboy and studied music with the court Kapellmeister, Georg Otto. The University of Marburg followed, where he studied law, but his patron, Landgrave Moritz, advised him to abandon his university studies and to go to Venice as a pupil of Giovanni Gabrieli; Schütz remained in Venice for over three years. The following year he was seconded to serve for two months at the electoral court in Dresden, and in 1615 the Elector Johann Georg I requested his services for a further two years – this was again extended and Schütz remained in his permanent employ. There his responsibilities included providing music for major court ceremonies, whether religious or political. In 1619 Schütz published his first collection of sacred music, the Psalmen Davids, dedicated to the elector. Towards the end of the 1620s economic pressures of the Th...

  by  Doug Thomas     October 1st, 2025 There is no genre of music which puts so much emphasis on the past as much as Western classical music . In fact, there are very few artistic mediums which focus so much on the past than music. Perhaps painting. In the visual arts, though, we have created environments for the new and environments for the old. And together, they coexist. In London, for instance, Tate Modern coexists with Tate Britain. In Paris, Pompidou with Orsay. In music, it is different. Even the most contemporary musical centres still promote the old over the new. And somehow, it is also always the same repertoire. Why is it that classical music cannot seem to be able to look ahead then? BBC Proms In the United Kingdom only, a quick skim through current musical programmes allows one to assess that most of the music performed in concert halls focuses on past composers. Surely, the amount of living composers has never been greater. Especially in the United Kin...

by  Frances Wilson    June 20th, 2017 © auralize.com I meet many piano teachers, at courses, workshops and masterclasses. It is always good to meet other piano teachers, to exchange ideas, and to enjoy a collective grumble about the exigencies of the job. Many of the teachers whom I meet are also performing musicians, professional or otherwise, and many regard performing as a necessary, indeed crucial, part of the job as a teacher. I also meet many teachers who do not perform, for one reason or another. Some cite lack of time, others anxiety or lack of confidence. I actually met one teacher who claimed she was “too afraid” to perform for her students in case she made a mistake. As teachers, performing is, in my opinion, a necessary part of the job, and we need to be able to guide and advise our students on how to present themselves in a “ performance situation ” (exam, festival, competition, audition), and to prepare them physically and emotionally for the experience. A w...

by Georg Predota   March 18th, 2026 Born in Tokyo on 18 March 1943, Nobuko Imai initially studied the violin but, after hearing Joseph de Pasquale at the Tanglewood Festival , she decided to take up the viola . Graduate studies brought her to Yale and Juilliard, and she made her US recital début at Carnegie Hall in 1968. Imai was a member of the Vermeer String Quartet from 1974 to 1979, which she still considers one of her greatest triumphs. “Every single day taught me so much… as chamber music has always been closest to my heart.” (Stewart, Nobuko Imai, The Strad) Nobuko Imai © Marco Borggreve Her playing is known for its technical precision and expressive depth. In addition, she is a dedicated advocate of 20 th -century music, and this includes the works of  Paul Hindemith . Her two Hindemith recordings for BIS from the early 1990s have been highly praised, and on the occasion of her birthday, let’s compare her interpretations with other notable recordings.  ...