The Purpose of this videoblog is to advocate, demonstrate, shine a light on, and encourage The Beautiful Music Possibility. By "Beautiful Music," we refer to two things: (1) choices and actions which are "music to our ears," which become part of the fabric of Blessings that we all receive … the sorts of choices and actions which are pleasing to "the Chief Musician"; and (2) the glorious music of such instruments as the piano and cello, music which reminds us of and calls us toward excellence, beauty, and service … toward this end, we feature Classical music, as well as Gospel music, jazz, ragtime, Boogie Woogie, and much more. We also invite you to join us in discussing the role of Beautiful Music in creating community, health, education, effectiveness around conflict, and inspiration.
Click here for the higher-visual-quality version of this video! MERRY CHRISTMAS, everyone! We hope you all have a wonderful holiday season, and a terrific New Year! We also hope you enjoy our arrangement of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” (Mendelsohn – Wesley), and that the coming seasons of your lives are filled with truly beautiful [...]
Anyone who’s paying attention can tell that she’s gifted, and gifted at the highest level. The passion is there, and there are a of couple of those unmistakable “telltale signs.” All a person has to do is watch Paula for a while. Y’know how there are dogs that … well, you only need to catch [...]
Click here for the higher-visual-quality version of this video! We offer our cello / piano arrangement of Ave Maria in the hope that all of God’s children will have a wonderful holiday season! For those of you who, with our family, are enjoying the Christmas season, and of course celebrating the birth of Jesus… Well, [...]
To our astonishment, Dan Brenden dropped in to our most recent Bach-’n-All™, and listened to us play music for a while! He’s been on the run, again. Since we’ve known him, which has been quite a few years, now, it’s seemed as though he’s always been on the run, at least until the law drags [...]
Click here for the higher-visual-quality version of this video! Belinda (who I mentioned in the previous post) and I performed this piece together when we were twelve years old. That was about half of our respective musical lifetimes ago, since we’re now both in the vicinity of 20 years old. Each of us started into [...]
Franz Schubert wrote songs … hundreds of them. Ella Fitgerald sang ‘em. And Belinda? Well, she is a song. For the longest time, when I’ve thought of Belinda, it’s been, as Rogers and Hart wrote in 1929, and Ella Fitzgerald sang, nearly 30 years later, “With a Song in My Heart!” I’d guess that a [...]
Part One: Part Two: Click here for the higher-visual-quality version of this performance! (It’s not divided into two parts, as was required by YouTube’s 10-minute limit.) George Gershwin had his priorities straight… He dropped out of school when he was 15. That’s the thing we most admire and appreciate about him. We’re thankful that he [...]
It is always available to us, when life deals us a tough hand, to become bitter, cynical and self-absorbed. Sort of like Rick, at the beginning of the classic movie Casablanca. Rick, the character played by Humphrey Bogart, and Ilsa, played by Ingrid Bergman, had fallen in love, several years earlier, in Paris. At the [...]
Click here for the higher-visual-quality version of this video! Frédéric Chopin, who is our “other” famous great-great-great-great grandteacher, was of course from Poland. As was our great-great-great-great grandmother (on our father’s side), Ida Weisman Rice, who came to the United States around the year 1910, when she was about the age we Rice Brothers are [...]
Lately, our family has been re-watching the Ken Burns *Jazz* series. There is a wonderful interview segment with Artie Shaw. (He was an American jazz clarinetist, composer, and bandleader, widely considered to be one of the greatest jazz musicians of his time.) Speaking of something which hugely influenced him when he was in his late [...]
Click here for the higher-visual-quality version of this video! Franz Joseph Haydn is three generations back, on our “teacherly tree,” from Franz Liszt, making “Papa Joe” our great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandteacher. So far, he’s better known for writing “The Haydn C,” which is what many people call his Cello Concerto in C, than he is for being [...]
There are two reasons we wanted to welcome you with Franz Liszt’s “Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2.” First, we think it’s stunningly, vastly beautiful. And second, we want to honor two of the teachers who are most loved by us (and also the teachers you love the most)! (We intend to rhapsodize about such teachers… <smile>) [...]
Sometimes there’s a smile or a nod first, but we most often play music for people … a bit of piano, a bit of cello … before we talk with them. For us, this is like first handing someone a rose, to honor the beautiful music which lives in them (whether or not that “beautiful [...]
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