Links We Like: Beethoven for Breakfast

Good and Good for You: It’s Beethoven’s 5th Symphony – in Japanese?! Watch the English-subtitled version above, or the one with slightly better video quality (and no subtitles) here.
From The Collaborative Piano Blog.

Keep reading for more excerpts we like this week.

The Report Card Is In: The U.S. Department of Education announced this week the results of the 2008 Nation’s Arts Report Card, detailing how much eighth-grade students know and are able to do in music and the visual arts. The gaps are evident, for instance only 57% of eight-graders attend schools where music instruction is offered at least three or four times a week, and 8% attend schools where no music instruction of any kind is offered.

In response to the results, the Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and senior officials at the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Assessment Governing Board all called for substantially increasing access to arts learning. Duncan said: “This Arts Report Card should challenge all of us to make K-12 arts programs more available to America’s children and youth. Such programs not only engage students’ creativity and academic commitment today, but they uniquely equip them for future success and fulfillment. We can and should do better for America’s students.”
From League of American Orchestras

All Mahler, All the Time: with the 100-year anniversary of Gustav Mahler’s death just around the corner in 2011, Universal Edition has come down with a case of Mahler mania! For the next two years, as Mahler anniversary concerts abound, UE’s Mahler blog will track them down and publicize them, as well as provide other Mahler-related content. Interviews with conductors, reviews of Mahler concerts, and analysis, including the handbook for concert programming.
From Alex Ross: The Rest is Noise.

A Very Good Cause: 18-year-old Zuhal Sultran is using music to make a difference in her hometown of Baghdad, Iraq. In addition to working with organizations like UNICEF and Musicians for Harmony to improve the situation in her area, she’s starting a new project: creating the National Youth Orchestra of Iraq. For more information about the project, click here, or visit here to donate to the cause.
From classicalnews on Twitter.

In the “things-I-wish-I-could-do” department, here’s a fascinating blog post from Georgia Stitt about Absolute Pitch. She claims not to have it, but man, she’s getting a lot closer than I can.
From Georgia Stitt Official Blog.

The BSO is running to Tanglewood: Everyone’s getting a little more creative about fundraising nowadays, including Boston Symphony Orchestra bassist Todd Seeber and violinist James Cooke. The two musicians organized an all-BSO relay race to support the orchestra. According to HubArts.com, the 150-mile run “will be broken up into 32 relay stretches of 3.5 to 6 miles.” The race is scheduled to start on the 29th and is expected to take just under 24 hours – that’s a lot of running! Support the relay here.
From HubArts.com.