Links We Like: Rodeo

Hoedown from Rodeo from Eleanor Stewart on Vimeo.

Ride ’em, cowgirl: Eleanor Stewart created this stop-motion animation, set to Aaron Copland’s “Hoedown” from the Rodeo Suite, for her final year degree at the Glasgow School of Art. As Miss Mussel from The Omniscient Mussel pointed out, that’s one way to make the score come alive!
From The Omniscient Mussel.

Keep reading for more links we like this week.

Another famous mystery woman.

Who was “Für Elise” for? Klaus Martin Kotiz, a German musicologist, may have unraveled the mystery. In an article to be published next year, he claims that the famed Elise was actually Elizabeth Roekel, a soprano from Germany. Unfortunately, Roeckel doesn’t even have her own Wikipedia entry, so it’s hard to know very much about her, but public interest in the singer will undoubtedly peak.
From classicalnews on Twitter.

A Yamaha Disklavier in action, courtesy of Jsteebler and Wikipedia.

Put on your Simon Cowell Face, cause the Minnesota International Piano-e-Competition is streaming live! Watch all the performances, get competition results in real time, and even chat with other audience members. (No, the audience doesn’t vote, but maybe that’s for the best). Here’s how it works: in the preliminary round, performers from all over the world use a piano called a Yamaha Disklavier, (which Wikipedia describes as basically a computerized player piano), to play in their home countries. The Disklavier captures a performer’s sound, while he or she is videotaped so the judges can get the visual aspects of the performance. The judges review the performances at a central location. Then, performers who advance from the preliminary round are flown to Minnesota for the subsequent rounds of competition. Prelim rounds are still going on today and tomorrow, and subsequent rounds will also be streamed.
From The Well-Tempered Blog.

Luis Claudio Manfio at work.

If strings are your thing, both Violinist.com and AllThingsStrings.com are both featuring blogs by string instrument makers. Luis Claudio Manfio, a violin maker based in Brazil, is meticulously documenting how to carve a violin’s scroll. Jim McKean, on the other hand, is blogging the creation of a cello from start to finish. Both are using the internet to bring their old craft some new life. And the pictures are SWEET! In other somewhat related news, check out this New York Times story about the village of Donggaocun, China where there has been a boom of violin making and playing.
From Violinist.com and AllThingsStrings.com

Tim Page.

Bonus: pick the brain of Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic Tim Page in the current issue of Opera News. It’s a great piece on his career as a critic and the role of arts critics in general.
From The Metropolitan Opera.