LJ Knows Good Music

Happy 80th birthday to John Williams today!

Happy 200th birthday to Franz Liszt today.

Hi, everyone! 
I'd like to introduce to you the works of Dmitry Malikov - a famous russian composer and pianist. Dmitry began his career as a pop-singer and has been very successful for about 20 years. Today Dmitry is making shows of classical music combined with colorful performances and modern sounds. His Pianomania show is one of its kind in Russia. Check out his Youtube channel and his Wikipedia article to learn more about him. 
Comments are very welcome - it's interesting to know if you might like his music!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Malikov

http://www.youtube.com/user/PIANOMANIAofficial

Juilliard Commencement Speech by composer John Adams


....And the wonderful, astonishing truth is that the arts are utterly useless. You can't eat music or poetry or dance. You can't drive your car on a sonnet it or wear it on your back to shield you from the elements. This "uselessness" is why politicians and other painfully literal-minded people during times of budget crises (which is pretty much all the time now) can't wait to single the arts out for elimination. For them artistic activity is strictly after-school business. They consider that what we do can't honestly be compared to the real business of life, that art is entertainment and ultimately non-essential. They don't realize that what we artists offer is one of the few things that make human life meaningful, that through our skill and our talent and through the way that we share our rich emotional lives we add color and texture and depth and complexity to their lives.

100 years ago today, Gustav Mahler died.

It's hard to believe that during his lifetime, his works were shunned. But today, they are considered masterpieces.

Discussion, anyone?