I spent the better part of December working on a project.  I had started the project last year but there is nothing like a deadline to get something done.  And Christmas was my deadline.  

Years ago Jascha Heifetz recorded White Christmas for Decca records.  It was a great recording and wonderful arrangement which was unfortunately unpublished.  What does that mean to me?  That means that I had to sit down and write it out.  It turned out that after writing it and filming it, I felt the need to put finger…

The demise of the video store.

Over the last couple of weeks, one of my favorite haunts has been have a closing sale.  Media Wave in Fairfield is closing its doors.  The owner Paul is someone who I have known for many years and as a matter of fact I knew his uncle who had a HUGE video store in Stamford called Video Hut in Stamford back in the mid 90’s. Video Store?

Its very name is an anachronism.  The area paper did away with the “best” category for the video store?  Why because when was the last time…

I used to write a lot but once it got to be popular to pollute the internet with ones own shortcomings in prose, I decided to stop.  The sum total of my writing became my short spurts of outrage or joy on Facebook, but now I have decided that I do need the outlet of writing.  So excuse me as I write about the things that interest me, the things that bother me, and perhaps most worrying the things that I think about. 

I have worked in the music business for longer than I care to admit. When I wasn’t…

It is a new year.  I sit at my computer with my violin in the corner and my viola on the table.  I think that nobody would believe that I was playing the viola.

Yes, in 2011 I started performing on the viola.  I thought it was time to branch out and expand my horizons.  Not to mention the fact that the viola is just plain easy.  Don’t believe what they tell you.  The viola literature can be sight read in an afternoon.  If anyone debates you tell them that a third of their rep is arranged from the…

Here we have two pianists. Both are famous, both have cult followings, however Lang Lang, or as I prefer to call him BANG BANG, has reached into that stratosphere of musical celebrity reserved for the Beatles and the such.

Why? Honestly, I am not quite certain. Lang Lang as a pianist reminds me of the very worst of Horowitz. The large drops in volume, the excessive portamento, the extreme velocity and the extreme BANGING. Mind you, Horowitz went through this after having his own personal…