Taking a Break

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I may return to posting, but, for now, I'll be packing it in. It's been harder than I thought to keep blogging up since moving to Los Angeles and taking on a new job at the Colburn School.

If you want to get in touch, or just want to keep up with me, follow me on Twitter @berrymark, or find me on Facebook.

Thanks for stopping by.

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Don't Stop the Christmas Music

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Christmas is over, but there's no reason to stop listening to music for the season. Here are some suggestions of things that haven't yet become holiday classics, but which deserve hearing while you're still in the mood. Written in 1927, A Carol Symphony by British composer Victor Hely-Hutchinson is an honest-to-goodness four-movement symphony based on traditional holiday tunes. It's entertaining as all get-out, and deserves to be played more often this time of year. Of course, Naxos has a recording of A Carol Symphony available. A Carol Symphony - Allegro ene... Though not strictly a Christmas piece, David Lang's Little Match Girl Passion  reminds us that this is a time of year to remember the neediest. Lang's 30-minute meditation on Hans Christian Andersen's short story about a poor girl who dies alone in the cold on New Year's Eve received its world premiere at Carnegie Hall  in 2007. Another contemporary American work, John Adams's  El...
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