On June 12 and 14, Courtney Lewis will conduct his final subscription concerts as associate conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra. In the fall, he will join the New York Philharmonic as assistant conductor, and he was recently appointed music director of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra. Recently I had the chance to ask him about education, conducting, and leaving Minnesota for New York.


Courtney Lewis on his new gigs - and what he'll miss about Minnesota

The Recording Academy's nominations for the 2014 Grammy Awards represent more of the exciting innovation happening in the classical music world than ever before.


2014 classical Grammy nominations highlight innovation

Although it is a simple melody, a child's first performance of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" is a big achievement, and a joyous, memorable occasion. When children share the experience of mastering a skill, and share their resulting art with their community, they become more connected; the imaginative experience shared between performer and audience, between child and their community, is transcendent, or, as philosopher Maxine Greene states, "as close as we get to each other."


El Sistema and the transformative power of music education

Throughout the evening you felt as if you were being invited to share in the tradition of the great masters. The Hagen Quartet played with supreme ease and confidence; not with swagger, but with the conviction that this is their tradition, their music.


Matt Beckmann

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