By Dan Visconti
When we permit ourselves to stop grasping and just let the experience happen, accepting it, then therein lies the greatest possibility for eventual understanding, albeit on a level we may not have expected to engage.

By Dan Visconti
I have heard the term “unmelodic” applied both by a grandmother decrying some techy death metal band and also by and pop/rock-loving teen explaining to me why the Barber Adagio was boring, and I have witnessed someone who just swoons over Vivaldi claim that Jimi Hendrix was too “rhythmically repetitive” for her tastes.

By Dan Visconti
I see as a glimmer of hope in an otherwise bleak situation, especially for young people of musical inclination: that while the middle class continues to shrink, at least some of that shrinkage might be accounted for by portions of the middle class morphing into a new “creative class” rather than tumbling into poverty

By Dan Visconti
Our earliest fusions of music with ceremony are believed have been closely linked to rituals, as mundane as giving thanks for a successful foraging mission or as singular as a young person’s passage into adulthood; perhaps this is the root of all opera and music drama.

By Dan Visconti
Last week’s New York City Opera premiere of Leonard Bernstein’s A Quiet Place was a rousing success, judging both from audience reactions and an extremely favorable review in the Times. Director Christopher Alden was faced with a tremendous challenge in bringing together disparate material.

By Dan Visconti
This week was spent working on an interesting bit of Gebrauchsmusik (if I may stretch the term a bit): a guitarist requested a short solo piece suitable for opening solo recitals, and I responded with a piece that literally “tunes up” his guitar for the concert.

By Dan Visconti
I’ve often been fascinated with the music of Tin Pan Alley and with the golden era of recreational music-making; whether for pure recreation or for humanitarian effort, it heartens me to see that some American families still have high hopes for the role of music in their lives, and also what music might mean in the lives of others.

By Dan Visconti
I wanted to write a few words about a topic of great interest to me: how composers scribe their ideas on physical media.

By Dan Visconti
In the end, it’s lack of feedback that’s truly terrifying in a commercial gig.

By Dan Visconti
While technological advances may be balanced out be a corresponding decrease in mental capacity, we may actually come out on top.