Blog/News

  We’ve just heard that the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the Cleveland Orchestra will offer a new international competition for young musicians ages 13-18 beginning in summer 2010. Known as the Thomas and Evon Cooper International Competition, the competition takes an interesting approach by alternating each year between piano and violin entries. First up, is […]

Wicked: Composer Stephen Schwartz (of “Wicked,” “Enchanted,” and “Pippin” fame) is writing an opera, and a spooky  one at that. “Seance on a Wet Afternoon” is about a married couple and the spirit of their dead 11-year-old. It sounds reminiscent of Menotti’s “The Medium” (incidentally, From the Top featured a wonderful …

The federal United We Serve initiative is a new movement to mobilize volunteerism across the country. For those of you who follow this blog regularly, you are well aware of the amazing  contributions that From the Top alumni make in their communities  everyday. A few examples of which are: Griffin Gaffney’s free music lesson program […]

We are always thrilled to hear from past From the Top performers. Here is another round of updates from our accomplished alumni.  To our alumni and parents: keep them coming! 17-year-old cellist Julian Schwartz, who was on From the Top’s radio show in 2007, was profiled in a recent issue of Teen Strings. Matt Sircely’s […]

Check out this great article we found in the New York Times about the booming instrument industry in China. Violin, viola, cello, and bass production in the small town of Donggaocun, just outside Beijing, is actually serving as a serious form of economic development for the area. Read the article here.

New York Crew in New Jersey We just wrapped up another year in our partnership with Young Audiences New Jersey (YANJ) to bring From the Top alums into Newark schools through a grant from the Prudential Foundation. In addition to implementing a Make Your Own Radio Show program in three schools, we started a new […]

Our live radio taping in El Paso, TX last month marked the fantastic milestone of more than $1,000,000 in scholarships awarded through our Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award program. To those not familiar with the program, every year the Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award is given to twenty-five promising young artists from around […]

Send in the clowns: it’s a Concerto for Toy Piano. Keith Kirchoff is the soloist in this whimsical piece of music written by Matthew McConnell, which, as it turns out, was recorded right on From the Top‘s home turf: NEC’s Jordan Hall! Keith is a composer as well as a pianist, and has written several […]

I have to admit it. I had no idea there were so many classical concerts to be heard in the Midwest, beyond Interlochen and Ravinia. The good news is, I was wrong. There are dozens of them – and you can get into plenty for under 20 bucks. -Lily Kaiser

Below is the second edition of a new series of “Audition Stories”, a fistful of firsthand reports on what it takes to get on From the Top. We’ll cover details from the toughest application question to the fateful phone call and everything in between. Of course, the best way to find out what auditioning is […]

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! […]

15-year-old harpist Sage Po is a recipient of From the Top’s Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award and recently performed at our El Paso taping on June 13 (airing nationally the week of October 19.) Below, Sage reports on her summer studies at the American Harp Society’s Summer Institute, made possible through her $10,000 Young […]

We are pleased to report that we have succeeded in reaching our goal for the $25,000 matching challenge grant from our Boston donors Liz and Phill Gross! We thank everyone who helped us secure this wonderful gift, which makes it possible for us to close our fiscal year without a deficit. Now, on to another […]

We’ll be visiting music camps around the country this summer to find some new, amazing talent for our next season of programming. Stops include: Sphinx Performance Academy at Walnut Hill School Natick, MA – July 7 Boston University Tanglewood Institute Boston, MA – July 17 Interlochen Center for the Arts Summer Arts Camp Interlochen, MI […]

Patrick McGuire is back from Tanzania! The 19-year-old cellist and From the Top alum has completed the two-week arts program for young adults called the “Arusha Arts Initiative” that he designed with five of his peers at Juilliard. (If you want the backstory, we blogged it! Here‘s an interview we did with Patrick when he […]

If you subscribe to our e-newsletter, you may have already heard that we recently received news of a $25,000 matching challenge grant from our leadership donors Liz and Phill Gross of Boston, MA. Since we announced this challenge two weeks ago, we have raised 85% of our matching goal. Incredible! We’d thought we’d send a […]

Pianos: they’re not just for inside anymore. Luke Jerram, an English artist, put 30 pianos in public places around London for the summer as part of his artwork called “Play Me, I’m Yours.” The idea is to bring people together in public places, like a train station, when they wouldn’t normally talk to one another. […]

What could be one of the world’s first musical instruments was discovered in Germany recently, according to the Boston Globe. A flute, carved from bone and ivory, is estimated at approximately 35,000 years old. The Globe reports: “The find suggests just how integral artistic expression may be to human existence: Music apparently flourished even in […]