by Kurt Knecht | Jul 26, 2023 | Uncategorized
My friend, Dr. Sarah Farr, got in touch with me in the Summer of 2022 to discuss writing some songs for developing voices. This set represents the second volume of an ongoing project. You can purchase it here: Songs for Developing Voices Volume II Each song is crafted...
by Kurt Knecht | Jul 22, 2023 | Uncategorized
“The squirrel feeds with difficulty,” is what “Mühsam ernährt sich das Eichhörnchen” means according to Google translate. I suppose they do, but what Germans mean when they say this phrase is much more akin to what English speakers mean when they say, “Rome wasn’t...
by Kurt Knecht | Jul 12, 2023 | Uncategorized
When I play for conducting class, I regularly hear the following: “We have a recording of the composer doing this piece, so we know what s/he wanted.” “The composer wrote this metronome marking, so we need to get pretty close to that.” “The composer was so precise in...
by Kurt Knecht | Jul 11, 2023 | Uncategorized
In a wonderful interview between Andre Previn and Oscar Peterson (you can watch it here), the discussion — as it inevitably does between two jazz pianists — turns to Art Tatum. Peterson brings up a pianist he met once that played by taking everything from Tatum...
by Kurt Knecht | Jul 10, 2023 | Uncategorized
The term “fundamentalist” originates from that indefatigable wellspring of tuckermanity: the Presbyterian. A business tycoon in the 1920s became concerned about the Princeton theological faculty and their affinity for recent German Biblical scholarship. Deciding the...
by Kurt Knecht | Jul 6, 2023 | Uncategorized
This is a setting of Dorothy Sayers’ poem, “Christ the Companion.” The fabulous and redoubtable soprano, Alyssa Toepfer, sang it a few weeks ago at St. Paul’s on a Sunday morning. I originally wrote this piece for my friend, Donna Harler Smith. CHRIST THE COMPANION...
by Kurt Knecht | Jun 20, 2023 | Uncategorized
My friend, Dr. Sarah Farr, got in touch with me in the Summer of 2022 to discuss writing some songs for developing voices. Volume I is now available. You can purchase it here: Songs for Developing Voices Volume I This set represents the first volume of what we hope to...
by Kurt Knecht | Jun 13, 2023 | Uncategorized
One of the difficulties about the discussion around cultural appropriation is simply figuring out what the word “culture” means and how to draw border lines around it. In a global community, for better or worse — and I personally think mostly worse — there isn’t much...
by Kurt Knecht | Jun 12, 2023 | Uncategorized
Context seems to be a major factor in how we understand the appropriate usage of cultural artifacts. Once when I was in the Museum of Natural History in D.C., I was struck by the display of a totem pole. It seems odd that we, as a culture, would pull an object that...
by Kurt Knecht | Jun 11, 2023 | Uncategorized
If we think about the British Museum displaying a vase from ancient Babylon, the concept of “cultural appropriation is clear. They likely picked up the vase during the glory days of the Empire. In that case, one group takes something from another group. Stealing is...
by Kurt Knecht | May 17, 2023 | Uncategorized
When I was coming up as an organist, I complained to a friend once about some goings on in a meeting of the local chapter of the American Guild of Organists. He replied with the classic joke, “Well, you know, the AGO is really just an organization for little old...
by Kurt Knecht | May 9, 2023 | Uncategorized
“For how stands the case, for instance, if we endeavor to explain the cause of the rising of the Nile? We may say a great deal, plausible or otherwise on the subject; but what is true, sure, and incontrovertible regarding it, belongs only to God. Then, again, the...
Recent Comments