Sax: On the Necessity of Military Bands
Adolphe Sax makes a bold and impassioned case for the cultural, moral, and economic importance of the military band.
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Author: Craig Dabelstein
Craig Dabelstein is the founder of Maxime’s Music, a publisher dedicated to reviving the forgotten world of 19th-century music through recordings, editions, and translations. An instrumental music teacher and conductor, he spends his time unearthing lost repertoire, translating historic texts, and arguing—sometimes loudly—that music should move people before it impresses them.
Guimet: Popular Music
In La Musique populaire, Guimet offers a searching examination of the choral and band movements of his time.
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Dabelstein: On Music, Conducting, and Other Things I Pretend to Understand
What is music education really teaching — and what responsibility comes with standing in front of others and asking them to make art?
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The impossibility of staging a concert: why even the smallest concert demands impossible sacrifice
I confess: sometimes I think attempting even a small concert is impossible.
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Why we choose sad music when we are sad: and not happy music to cheer us up
If you are sad, why would you deliberately choose music that makes you sadder?
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I am a failed conductor: a reflection on idealism
This is the most economical way I know to describe a career spent pursuing a sound that never quite materialised.
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Conflicts of interest in the wind band world, part 2: A rebuttal
After publishing my reflections on structural conflicts of interest within the wind band world, several predictable objections emerged.
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When roles overlap, perception shifts, authority compounds, and scrutiny softens.
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The Miracle Nobody Notices: everything that has to go right for a school music program to succeed
People talk about a “successful music program” as if it were a simple thing — as if it were merely the result of a good teacher, or enthusiastic students, or a few concerts a year.
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There’s Something Worse Than No Arts Experience
There is something worse than a student who never participates in the arts at school.
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