Thank you to my son who uploaded the music file to my Home Page! The piano music is a piece from “Las Majas” by Enrique Granados, written in 1913. The title of the piece is “La Maja y El Ruisenor” or “The Lament of the Maiden and the Nightingale.”

My son said the job of uploading the music was not trivially easy, and it was certainly not for the faint of heart (in other words, it was a sophisticated computer task that I am NOT up to doing!)

Musica Nova Orchestra will play its FIFTH “Entartete Musik” concert on March 30, 2008, 4:00 p.m. at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts. I will be playing the celesta in Franz Schreker’s Overture to “Die Gezeichneten” (“The Branded”) in a duet with my piano student and the son of Musica Nova’s Music Director, Warren Cohen, and soprano, Carolyn Whitaker, nine-year-old Graham Cohen.

“Entartete Musik” means DEGENERATE MUSIC in German – in other words, this was music banned by the Nazi regime in the 1930′s because the composer, or someone connected to the composer, was Jewish (for instance, Engelbert Humperdinck’s music was banned because he used a Jewish librettist!). I just watched and listened to the 2005 Salzburg Festival production of “Die Gezeichneten,” and it was completely absorbing. Schreker’s music is stunningly beautiful and deserves many more frequent hearings.

On April 25, 2008, Celinda Anne Levno, flute, and I will perform another Lumière Duo concert of French Flute & Piano Music of the 20th Century. The concert will take place at 7:30 p.m. at the Scottsdale Presbyterian Congregation’s sanctuary, located on the NE corner of Hayden and Osborn Roads near Downtown Scottsdale.

Tickets are available NOW for TOSCA, November 14 & 16, 2008, and for AÏDA, January 30 & February 1, 2009, through www.ticketmaster.com or by telephoning the “Ticket Maestro” at 1-866-OPERA4U (1-866-673-7248).