Before Another Library Burns: how luck shapes music history
Every so often one encounters a story that reveals how terrifyingly fragile our musical inheritance really is.
Read more
Category: Essays
The Military Band — and the Woman Who Wasn’t Supposed to Write It
If we care about the future of the military band then we owe it to ourselves to listen carefully to its early critics and historians.
Read more
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.
Read more
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?
Read more
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.
Read more
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.
Read more Conflicts of interest in the wind band world, part 1
When roles overlap, perception shifts, authority compounds, and scrutiny softens.
Read more
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.
Read more
There’s Something Worse Than No Arts Experience
There is something worse than a student who never participates in the arts at school.
Read more
The Soundtrack of Thought: Why “Study Music” Is Really About Emotion, Not Lyrics
Because emotional responses to sound are shaped by personal history and aesthetic development, no single study playlist works for everyone.
Read more